THE  CHEVALIER  OF 
PENSIERI-VANI 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF 
PENSIERI-VANI 


BY 
HENRY  B.  FULLER 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 
1899 


COPYRIGHT,   1890,   1892, 
BY  HENKY  B.  FULLER. 


All  rights  reserved. 

FIFTH  EDITION,  REVISED. 


THE  DE  VINNE  PHE89. 


TO 

CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON. 


AUTHOR'1 S  NOTE. 

Occasion  has  been  taken,  in  connection 
tcith  tJie  manufacture  of  a  new  set  of  plates 
for  TJie  Glievalier,  to  make  a  complete  re 
vision  of  tJie  text.  Readers  of  the  book  in 
its  original  shape  will  note,  too,  the  incor 
poration  of  a  new  chapter.  For  the  scene 
of  this  chapter  I  have  selected  a  locality 
likely  to  please  that  early  and  indulgent 
reader  who  has  accepted  the  dedication  of 
the  book  in  its  latest  form  and  to  ichose 
kindness  its  first  success  was  largely  due. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I  VITEBBO  :  AN  ELUSIVE  ETRUSCAN  1 

II  PISA:  MAN  PROPOSES;  WOMAN  DISPOSES  11 

III  TUSCAN  TOWNS:  THE  " MADONNA  INCOGNITA"     24 

IV  SIENA  :    A  VAIN  ABASEMENT  40 

V  ORVIETO  :  How  THE  CAVALIERE  WON  HIS  TITLE   54 

VI  ROME:  THE  MARGRAVINE  AND  THE  IRON  POT      69 

VII  THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  Po :  MASTER  AND  PUPIL    90 

VIII  ANAGNI:  THE  END  OF  A  CAREER  108 

IX  AROUND  ROME  :  THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE   120 

X  RAVENNA  :  A  "  HUMAN  INTEREST  "  135 

XI  VENICE:  A  DOUBLE  ENDEAVOR  147 

XII  THE  ADRIATIC:  ARCOPIA  ON  THE  HORIZON        162 

XIII  FLORENCE:  FINALE  179 


THE    CHEVALIER    OF 
PENSIERI-VANI 


VITERBO:  AN  ELUSIVE   ETRUSCAN 

'T  was  the  Chevalier  of  Pensieri-Vani  who 
halted  his  traveling-carriage  upon  the 
brow  of  the  Ciminian  Forest  to  look 
down  over  the  wide-spread  Campagna  di 
Roma.  Or,  to  be  more  accurate,  the 
carriage  was  not  his,  but  was  merely 
hired  by  him  from  a  certain  vetturino 
of  Viterbo.  Or,  again,  to  be  accurate 
beyond  any  possibility  of  cavil  or  ques- 

^on'  ^  was  no^  a  ca™aSe  a^  aH>  but 
simply  a  sort  of  little  gig  or  chaise,  a 
duepostij  and  was  neither  new,  nor  neat, 
nor  over-comfortable.  But  the  scrubby 
little  mare  went  well  enough  along,  and 
her  owner,  considerately  entreated,  had 
turned  out  to  be  sufficiently  civil  and 
trustworthy.  The  effects  of  the  trav 
eler  were,  in  the  main,  stored  away 
under  the  seat,  and  included,  so  far  as  might  be 
observed,  a  sketch-book,  a  bottle  of  Orvieto,  a  vol- 


2;  ;  .;  .  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

ume  or  two  on  Etruria,  and  a  brown-paper  parcel 
which  may  have  contained,  if  it  be  not  impertinent 
to  hazard  the  guess,  a  trifle  in  the  way  of  bread  and 
cheese.  The  Chevalier,  I  now  scarce  need  confess,  was 
a  "  poor  gentleman  " — one  with  much,  perhaps,  behind 
him,  but  very  little  by  him,  and  not  much  more  be 
fore  him.  But  he  loved  the  post-roads  of  Tuscany, 
and  the  soft  vowels  of  the  bocca  Romana,  and  every 
spreading  pine-tree  and  every  antique  stone  of  the 
fair  Italian  land.  He  had  little  money  and  little  pres 
tige  ;  but  he  was  young,  and  he  was  happy,  too,  in 
an  abundance  of  leisure  and  a  disposition  to  follow 
the  byways  with  content.  And  he  was  on  his  way  to 
Rome. 

Dost  know  the  tombs  of  Castel  d' Asso  ?  The  towers 
of  San  Gimignano  ?  The  outlooks  from  Montepul- 
ciano?  The  palaces  of  Pienza?  The  cloisters  of 
Oliveto  Maggiore  ?  Hast  ever  penetrated  the  obscure 
renown  of  the  Fanuin  VoltumnaB, — or  followed  the 
fading  frescos  of  the  Grotta  del  Trincliuio, —  or 
studied  the  lengthening  shadows  of  the  Val  di 
Chiana, — or  boated  it  across  to  the  lonely  isles  of 
the  Lago  Trasimeno  ?  No  ?  Nor  have  I.  How  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  would  pity  us  both!  For  he  has;  such 
things  are  his  life.  Is  he  the  one  to  weary  of  rug 
ged  roads,  and  scanty  fare,  and  solitary  sojournings 
while  Toscanella,  and  Orvieto,  and  Bracciano,  and 
Civita  Castellana  beckon  him  on?  Ah,  you  are  yet 
to  know  the  man ! 

If  you  had  asked  the  Cavaliere  —  his  title  was 
Italian,  and  should  take  the  Italian  form — why  he 
cared  so  much  for  old  Etruria,  I  am  not  sure  that 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEBI-VANI.  3 

his  answer  would  have  been  as  clean-cut  as  your 
question.  Indeed,  he  might  not  have  tried  to  frame 
an  answer  at  all;  he  might  have  given  up  at  once 
any  idea  of  making  himself,  his  tastes,  his  prefer 
ences,  his  actions,  perfectly  intelligible  before  the 
prying  criticism  of  the  utilitarian  Philistine.  If  it 
was  his  pleasure  to  take  up  his  maps  and  his  sketch 
ing-block,  and  to  wander  at  will  among  the  immemo 
rial  monuments,  obscure  and  fragmentary  and  almost 
inaccessible,  of  a  day  and  generation  long  since 
passed  away,  why  should  we  ask  him  for  an  explana 
tion  ?  If  we  explain  our  pleasures,  they  are  pleasures 
no  longer.  One  may  be  called  upon  to  justify  his 
pleasures,  perhaps,  but  not  to  diagram  them.  And 
since  the  Cavaliere's  pleasures  were  so  simple,  so 
harmless,  and  so  inexpensive,  we  must  let  them  pass 
unchallenged.  If  he  loved  rock-hewn  antiquities, 
along  with  beaming  sky,  and  blooming  flowers, 
and  humble  osterie,  and  friendly  peasant-folk,  and 
every  day  looked  forward  with  tremulous  expecta 
tion  to  a  great  discovery  which  should  lay  before 
the  cognoscenti  a  "sepolcro  scoperto  dal  Cavaliere 
di  Pensieri-Vam,"  we  need  not  try  fully  to  under 
stand  him,  but  may  best  cut  it  short  and  take  him 
as  he  is. 

As  I  have  said,  the  Cavaliere  was  on  his  way  to 
Rome.  And  why  he  was  on  his  way  to  Rome,  I  can 
perhaps  contrive  partly  to  tell  without  any  great  vio 
lation  of  secrecy.  But  the  Cavaliere  would  hardly 
care  to  accept  the  gift  of  fame  at  the  hands  of  the 
vulgar,  and  if  I  do  tell,  I  need  not  look  to  him  for 
thanks.  Briefly,  he  was  going  to  Rome  to  meet  a 


4  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

certain  small  circle  of  kindred  spirits  who  awaited 
his  arrival  with  the  most  ardent  impatience,  and  who, 
inflamed  by  the  possession  of  certain  secret  intelli 
gence,  scarcely  could  be  restrained  from  setting  out 
to  meet  him.  Pensieri-Vani  was,  indeed,  almost  as 
eager  as  his  friends,  but  he  was  sufficiently  master  of 
himself  to  advance  in  the  modest  and  leisurely  fash 
ion  that  I  have  implied.  He  was  proud  and  happy 
and  exultant,  and  his  little  hour  of  pleasure  he  was 
quite  willing  to  prolong.  And  he  knew  that  as 
he  went  southward  his  happiness  would  grow  with 
every  step ;  and  the  tumultuous  rapture  with  which 
he  should  mark  off  the  last  mile  of  the  Via  Flaminia 
he  regarded  as  almost  the  crown  of  his  felicity; 
as  he  passed  under  the  Porta  del  Popolo  he  should 
be  on  the  point  of  placing  the  crown,  in  a  sense,  upon 
his  head. 

He  carried  the  crown  with,  him, —  a  literal,  actual 
crown,  a  crown  as  palpable,  as  tangible,  as  his  lotti- 
glia  or  his  sketch-book :  a  band  of  massive,  burnished 
gold,  fashioned  in  antique  mold,  and  adorned  with 
gems  all  splendid  in  themselves,  however  dusky  in 
their  history ;  a  circlet  from  the  brow  of  some  stately, 
far-off  Lucumo.  For  Pensieri-Vani  had  realized  his 
day-dream  at  last;  he  had  drawn  its  secret  from  an 
ancient  sepulcher,  and  was  even  now  upon  his  way 
Tiberward  with  an  evidence — a  single  but  striking 
and  conclusive  one  —  of  his  great  discovery:  carry 
ing  eternities  to  the  Eternal.  For  Viterbo  is  not 
more  the  city  of  "handsome  fountains  and  beautiful 
women  "  than  the  region  round  about  it  is  the  coun 
try  of  unstoried  ruins  and  elusive  sepulchers  j  and  his 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  5 

protracted  sojourn  in  its  environs  had  yielded  him,  in 
the  end,  his  heart's  dearest  desire. 

I  have  told  you  of  the  token  that  he  carried  j  but 
let  none  accuse  him,  laden  with  such  a  serious  pon 
derosity  of  time  and  story,  of  a  light-minded  frivolity, 
or  an  impertinent  curiosity,  or,  above  all,  of  a  vulgar 
penchant  for  pilfering.  How  little  he  took  compared 
with  what  he  might  have  taken  !  When  the  first  ray 
of  modern  daylight  pierced  the  darkness  sealed  up  in 
that  somber  cavern  thirty  centuries  ago,  and  fell 
glinting  upon  gleaming  breast-plates,  and  armlets, 
and  vases,  and  weapons,  and  trinkets,  what  an  embar 
rassment  of  riches  lay  before  him !  What  should  he 
take"?  What  single  proof  and  trophy  might  he  per 
mit  himself  to  appropriate?  To  what  extent  dared 
he  brave  the  majesty  of  the  old  Lucumo  stretched  out 
there  before  him  upon  his  bier?  Only  one  thing, — 
one ;  and  if  but  one,  why  not  the  best  ?  He  put  out 
his  hand  and  plucked  —  not  irreverently — the  crown 
from  the  ancient's  brow.  He  did  not  mean  to  keep  it ; 
he  would  no  sooner  have  robbed  a  tomb  of  thirty 
centuries  than  one  of  three.  No ;  the  crown,  having 
served  his  end,  should  be  returned  to  its  proper  place, 
and  the  stern  old  noble,  discrowned  in  secret,  should 
shortly  be  recrowned  openly  and  with  honor. 

The  Cavaliere,  then,  kept  quite  unimpaired  his  sense 
of  honesty, — honesty  in  its  most  palpable,  every-day 
form ;  but  had  he  kept  his  sense  of  delicacy  1  Well, 
I  repeat  that  he  was  not  actuated  by  motives  of  mere 
idle  curiosity,  nor  prompted  by  a  morbid  desire  to 
probe  after  the  cloaked  and  the  forbidden.  He  was 
far  from  insensible  to  the  thought  of  the  tomb's  hoary 


6  THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

mystery  and  dread, — far  from  meaning  essentially  to 
violate  the  sanctity  of  sepulture,  no  matter  what  the 
gulf  of  time,  and  race,  and  long-drawn  differentia 
tions  of  manner,  and  custom,  and  belief,  that  separated 
him  from  the  prostrate  lord  before  his  gaze;  but — he 
was  modern  and  an  archa3ologist.  Let  them  see  the 
token,  he  said  ;  then  we  will  return  together,  restore 
the  diadem,  reseal  the  tomb,  and  leave  the  old  Etrus 
can  to  his  own.  I  cannot  shield  him  from  my  own 
devoirs;  but  I  may  at  least  guard  him  against  the 
labels  of  the  museum  and  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
tourist. 

This  high  and  mighty  Lars, —  how  long  he  slept ! 
Through  the  downfall  of  his  own  country's  power; 
through  Rome's  career ;  through  Belisarius's  battles 
and  the  Exarchate's  decline ;  through  the  inroads  of 
Saracen  pirates ;  through  the  struggles  of  Guelph  and 
Ghibelline;  through  the  brief  day  of  the  Medici  — 
Florentine  and  Roman ;  through  the  petty  tyrannies 
of  Lorraine  and  the  transmogrifications  of  the  Corsi- 
can ;  and  on  to  the  Unification,  with  the  hated  Roman 
city,  so  long  defied  and  so  valiantly  resisted,  again 
in  the  ascendant.  And  now,  who  came  to  wake  him, 
and  what  manner  of  world  was  it  upon  which  he 
found  himself  invited  to  look  out?  Could  none  of 
a  thousand  trampling  Ca3sars,  and  anathematizing 
popes,  and  heaven-daring  emperors  have  come  to  his 
bedside,  and  extended  a  helping  hand,  that  he  must 
rely  upon  the  chance  courtesy  of  an  obscure  and  puny 
student?  Had  there  been  no  leisure  moment  in  all 
the  tumultuous  centuries  of  blood,  and  battle,  and 
contending  heroes,  that  he  must  wait  for  such  a  day 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANI.  7 

as  this, — a  day  so  timid,  so  puerile,  so  invertebrate1? 
A  thought  more  or  less  like  this  flitted  elusively 
through  the  Cavaliere's  mind;  but  it  did  not  stay 
the  hand  he  laid  upon  the  ponderous  portal  of  th'at 
sepulchral  habitation.  I  have  more  than  once  heard 
my  hero  rather  disdainfully  disclaim  to  represent  the 
age ;  yet  it  may  be  that  he  misrepresents  it  in  a  less 
degree  than  he  imagines.  But  for  the  Cavaliere  and 
his  doings  this  much,  in  the  end,  may  be  said :  if  he 
awakened  the  Lucumo,  it  was  his  fixed  intention  to 
put  him  to  sleep  again.  He  could  not  escape  the 
spirit  of  the  age ;  but  he  could  do  the  next  best  thing, 
and  make  a  compromise  with  it. 

But  there  are  few  who  find  themselves  able  to  push. 
their  plans  through  to  a  perfectly  satisfactory  com 
pletion,  and  the  Cavaliere,  as  it  turned  out,  was  little 
more  successful  than  the  rest  of  us.  For  he  never 
reached  Rome  at  all,  and  his  fancied  crowning  of  the 
antique  warrior-priest  was  by  no  means  so  felicitously 
well-rounded  a  ceremony  as  he  could  have  desired. 
He  had  scarce  left  the  Ciminian  Forest  so  far  behind 
as  to  have  passed  the  castle  of  Ronciglione,  when  the 
friends  toward  whom  he  was  journeying  actually  met 
him  on  the  highway,  after  all.  The  rickety  little  dili- 
genza,  which  a  turn  in  the  road,  just  then,  brought  into 
view,  arrested  itself  abruptly  in  its  own  dust-cloud, 
and  an  instant  later  Pensieri-Vani,  with  a  mingled 
feeling  of  pleasure  and  dismay,  discerned  the  dis 
mounting  of  the  Seigneur  of  Hors-Concours.  The 
Seigneur  was  at  once  followed  by  three  or  four  other 
friends,  and  the  whole  party,  running  up,  began  to 
shower  their  congratulations  upon  him. 


8  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

Pensieri-Vani  was  much  touched  and  nattered  by 
this  encounter  ;  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that  for  a 
moment  he  felt  as  one  feels  whom  an  impatient  audi 
tor  helps  out  with  a  word:  he  would  have  preferred 
finishing  his  discourse  in  his  own  way.  However, 
he  immediately  fortified  himself  for  an  extended  and 
unavoidable  ellipsis;  and  the  entire  group,  turning 
their  faces  northward,  prepared  to  accompany  him 
back  to — back  to — I  cannot  tell  you;  I  was  never 
told  myself.  The  Cavaliere  would  never  name  the 
spot  to  me,  and  none  of  the  others  were  ever  after 
ward  able  to  determine  its  situation.  I  know  only  that 
it  was  as  remote  and  inaccessible  as  well  might  have 
been ;  for  the  Etruscans,  in  rearing  their  tumuli,  had 
very  little  regard  for  the  comfort  and  convenience  of 
the  moderns.  I  venture  that  the  Cavaliere's  discov 
ery  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Castel  d'Asso,  for  they 
did  not  reach  the  place,  I  am  told,  until  the  following 
day,  and  well  on  toward  noon  at  that;  but  whether 
this  tomb  was  in  range  with  previous  discoveries,  or 
was  a  detached  and  unrelated  affair  of  its  own,  I  shall 
not  pretend  to  say.  The  latter  would  be  nearer  the 
truth,  perhaps,  for  I  gather  that  he  had  some  diffi 
culty  in  finding  it  again.  But  the  one  significant  fact 
in  connection  with  this  excursion  I  do  know,  al 
though  knowledge  of  it  came  to  me  —  through  private 
channels — something  more  than  a  year  later.  They 
did  find  the  tomb, —  after  some  extended  research, 
for  the  Cavaliere's  contadino  was  distinctly  stupid, — 
but  they  did  not  find  its  occupant.  The  couch  was 
there, — the  armor,  the  urns,  the  weapons;  but  the 
stark  and  rigid  form  of  the  old  Lucumo  had  vanished. 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  9 

The  crown  had  come  back,  but  there  was  no  head 
on  which  to  place  it.  Only  a  handful  of  fine  dust 
remained  upon  the  bier,  and  served  to  index  the 
mystery.  The  old  warrior,  after  having  triumphed 
for  threescore  years  over  the  chances  of  war,  and  the 
dangers  of  fire  and  flood, — after  sleeping  calm  and 
undisturbed  through  the  tempests  and  earthquakes  of 
three  thousand  years, — had  crumbled  pitifully  away 
to^othing  before  the  vagrant  breezes  of  a  summer 
day.  The  Cavaliere's  friends — he  had  not  told  them 
of  the  old  man  whose  crown  he  had  presumed  to 
seize — showed  the  appreciative  delight  of  true  cogno 
scenti  as  they  reviewed  the  frescos  on  the  rock-hewn 
walls,  and  fingered  the  various  objects  that  surrounded 
the  vacant  couch;  but  the  Cavaliere's  pleasure  was 
sadly  incomplete,  and  the  Cavaliere's  conscience  be 
gan  to  make  itself  felt.  He  had  done  an  evil  thing. 
He  had  not  been  able  altogether  to  justify  himself 
even  at  the  beginning ;  what,  then,  was  he  to  think 
of  himself  at  the  end  I  To  him  that  handful  of  ashes 
seemed  the  quintessence  of  a  high  disdain;  he  felt 
himself  choking  in  an  atmosphere  of  a  fierce  and  un 
quenchable  contempt.  The  stern  old  warrior-priest, 
who  might  have  wakened  to  a  Nero,  a  Hildebrand,  a 
Torquemada,  a  Napoleon,  had  been  invited  to  rest 
his  blinking  and  startled  gaze  upon  a  Garrison,  a 
Nightingale,  a  Peabody.  Slumbering  through  the 
long  ages  wherein  might  made  right,  he  had  been 
called  back  to  light  to  participate  in  an  epoch  of  in 
vertebrate  sentimentalism.  Drunk  on  deep  draughts 
of  blood  and  iron,  his  reviver  now  sought  to  force 
him  to  munch  the  dipped  toast  of  a  flabby  humani- 


10  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

tarianism,  and  to  sip  the  weak  tea  of  brotherly  love. 
This  refreshment  he  had  loftily  declined.  The  Cav- 
aliere,  humbled  and  ashamed,  laid  the  crown  upon 
the  bier,  and  without  a  word  passed  up  and  out  into 
the  sunlight.  Then,  with  the  assistance  of  his  won 
dering  comrades,  he  resealed  the  tomb,  obliterated  all 
external  trace  of  its  existence,  imposed  an  oath  of 
secrecy  on  every  one  present,  and  thoughtfully  re 
turned  to  Viterbo.  He  spent  many  years,  subse 
quently,  within  the  bounds  of  what  we  term  Etruria, 
engaged  in  study  of  this  and  that,  and  traveling  with 
leisurely  content  the  highways  and  byways  of  that 
lovely  and  mysterious  land;  and  while  it  cannot  be 
claimed  that  he  ever  after  ordered  his  ways  with  an 
unimpeachable  discretion, — though  on  this  point  you 
may  judge  for  yourselves,— yet  he  always  thought 
twice  before  venturing  to  part  the  mystic  veil  which 
men  call  "  B.  C.,»  and  never  again  in  his  life  did  he 
attempt  to  open  an  Etruscan  tomb. 


II 


PISA:    MAN  PROPOSES;    WOMAN  DISPOSES 


ENSIERI-VANI, 
as  I  have  en 
deavored  to  set 
forth,  possessed 
a  peculiarly  con 
tented  disposi 
tion.  "Parva,sed 
apta  mini"  was 
his  motto,  and 
envy  was  almost  a  stranger  to  his  heart.  In  fact, 
there  were  not  a  dozen  people  in  the  world  capable 
of  arousing  this  feeling  in  his  breast.  Perhaps  there 
was  only  one, — the  Seigneur  of  Hors-Concours. 

Hors-Concours  called  himself  a  Frenchman  or  an 
Italian  as  the  exigencies  of  the  case  required,  or  as 
his  own  fluctuating  feelings  and  preferences  prompted 
him.  His  small  patrimony  up  in  the  Alps  of  Savoy 
was  some  few  miles  within  the  borders  of  France,  but 
his  person  could  usually  be  found  a  good  many  miles 
within  the  borders  of  Italy,  whose  manners  and  lan 
guage  were  quite  a  part  of  his  second  nature,  if  not 
of  his  first.  It  was  not  the  Italian  part  of  him,  how 
ever,  that  awoke  Pensieri-Vani's  envy,  for  he  himself 


12  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  - VANI. 

had  Italian  relations  of  sufficient  intimacy  and  spoke 
the  Italian  language  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  was  the 
French  part,  the  patrimony  in  Savoy;  not,  under 
stand  me,  the  few  literal  acres  of  cloud-draped  rocks 
and  chestnut-trees  to  which  the  Seigneurs  of  Hors- 
Concours,  at  the  end  of  seven  centuries,  still  clung, 
but  the  fact,  the  general  idea,  of  a  long-descended  sei 
gniorial  freehold  where  one  might  plant  his  foot  and 
say :  "  This  is  mine ;  my  home  is  here."  A  name  is 
a  good  thing  •  Pensieri-Vani  fully  appreciated  his 
own  modest  little  title ;  but  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name, —  how  much  better:  a  habitation  where  one 
could  count  upon  being  looked  up  to;  where  a  re 
spectful  peasantry  might  be  relied  upon  to  bob  its 
courtesy  and  pull  off  its  hat  at  the  right  time ;  where 
distinguished  strangers,  passing  through,  would  be 
promptly,  almost  spontaneously,  directed  in  order  to 
taste  the  officialized  hospitality  of  the  region.  If  I 
have  implied  too  distinctly  that  Hors-Concours  was 
not  much  at  home  to  discharge  the  offices  of  hospital 
ity  and  to  render  some  palpable  return  for  all  the  gra 
tuitous  reverencings  of  the  country-folk,  I  can  only 
say  that  his  house  was  left  behind  him  to  be  opened 
freely  whenever  occasion  required,  and  that  the  con 
sciousness  he  carried  about  with  him  of  an  opportu 
nity,  at  least,  to  do  his  duty  was  not  the  smallest  of 
his  consolations.  But  it  may  be  said  for  him  that  if 
he  was  not  much  at  home,  he  was  never  far  away 
from  home.  His  Italian  connection,  though  intimate 
enough,  was  not  remarkable  for  extensive  ramifica 
tions,  and  when  he  had  reached  the  Val  d'  Arno  he 
usually  felt  that  he  was  as  far  from  home  as  he  could 
reasonably  be  required  to  go.  In  general,  he  found 


THE  CHEVALIEK  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  13 

himself  pretty  well  satisfied  with  Florence  or  Pisa, 
and  neither  of  these  cities  —  between  which  he  passed 
most  of  his  time  —  is  at  an  immeasurable  distance 
from  the  Piedmontese  frontier. 

It  was  probably  the  presence  in  Pisa  of  Hors-Con- 
cours  that  occasioned  the  presence  there  of  Pensieri- 
Vani.     There,  too,  the  Cavaliere  found  the  contadini 
quite  as  amiable  as  he  could  have  desired  the  moun 
tain-folk  of  the  Hants  Rochers  de  Hors-Concours  to 
be,  and  was  gratified,  in  addition,  by  a  good  many 
other  suavities  that  only  a  Tuscan  town  can  offer. 
For  Pisa,  at  any  time,  is  a  pleasure,  and  at  certain 
times,  when  all  favorable  conditions  combine,  a  posi 
tive  delight.   For  a  calm,  tranquil,  reposeful  pleasure, 
one  that  comes   quietly  but  sinks  in    deeper   and 
deeper  until  it  fills  you  fuU  of  peace  and  wraps  you  up 
in  "measureless  content/'  I  know  of  nothing  that 
compares  with  a  stroll  through  the  Pisau  streets  at  an 
hour  or  so  before  sunset.    Those  streets,  so  calm,  so 
still,  so  swept  and  garnished,  so  silent,  so  uneventful, 
so  filled  with  a  sweet  emptiness  of  sunshiny  radiance 
declining  into  shade,  were  capable  of  soothing  the 
Cavaliere  with  a  perfect  potency  that  no  poppy  per 
fume,  no  falling  minor  cadence,  nor  any  cunning  and 
sleep-laden  syrup  could  emulate.     And  when,  at  a 
later  hour,  he  threw  away  his  poppy  and  emerged 
upon  the  tempered  bustle  of  the  slow-curving  Arno, 
just  as  the  sun  in  its  setting  scattered  a  glory  of  rays 
from  behind  the  machicolations  of  the  Torre  Guelfa 
over  quais  and  bridges  and  the  smooth-slipping  Arno 
itself,— or,  a  little  later  still,  joined  the  gay  May- 
throng  that  flocked  pleasantly  through  the  intricacies 
of  the  darkling  Passeggiata,  while  the  moon  lit  up  the 


14  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI  -VANI. 

towers  of  Oltr7  Arno  and  threw  a  dancing  glimmer  on 
the  water  below,  and  the  long  curving  lines  of  light 
doubled  themselves  sympathetically  in  the  same  ele 
ment, —  then,  when  he  silently  pressed  the  Seigneur's 
arm,  or  the  Seigneur  his,  each  one  knew  just  what 
the  other  meant  without  any  waste  of  words.  Ah, 
that  sweep  of  the  Arno  at  Pisa  is  a  wonderful  thing ! 
It  was  on  the  Lung'  Arno,  of  course,  that  the  Cava- 
liere  had  his  lodgings,  and  it  was  to  the  southern  side 
of  it  that  he  gave  his  preference.  His  windows  were 
cunningly  disposed  to  catch  the  Torre  Guelfa  off  to 
the  left,  and  the  mountains  of  La  Verruca  off  to  the 
right  above  the  varied  line  of  palace-tops  that  fol 
lowed  the  curve  of  the  stream.  He  had  a  little  appart- 
amento  di  garzone  of  two  or  three  small  and  simply 
furnished  rooms,  and  a  pleasant-faced  Assunta  of 
forty-eight  or  fifty  to  make  his  caffe  and  to  dust  his 
books.  Assunta,  of  course,  could  do  much  more  than 
this;  she  understood  the  starching  of  collars  depro- 
fundis,  as  he  expressed  it,  and  could  manage  a  little 
dinner  of  five  or  six  very  competently,  indeed, — 
though,  truth  to  tell,  the  Cavaliere  did  not  dine  much 
at  home,  for  the  long  line  of  caffb  and  ristoranti 
over  the  waterway  —  he  used,  mostly,  the  Ponte  di 
Mezzo  —  satisfied,  pretty  well,  his  modest  require 
ments;  and  then  there  was  the  Contessa  Nullaniuna, 
who  always  had  a  place  for  him  at  her  table  when 
ever  he  chose  to  occupy  it.  His  windows  gave  to  the 
north, —  not  a  bad  thing  in  the  Pisan  spring, — and  he 
sat  at  them  and  looked  out  rather  more  than  many 
less  quiet  persons  could  find  reason  for.  Indeed,  the 
Prorege  of  Arcopia,  who,  on  a  certain  occasion  left 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  15 

his  orbit  so  far  as  to  make  a  sojourn  of  some  months 
in  the  Val  d'  Arno,  oiice  asked  him  what  there  was  to 
take  up  so  much  of  his  attention ;  there  seemed  to  be 
very  little  going  on,  and  no  appreciable  change  from 
day  to  day.  To  which  the  Cavaliere  could  hardly  do 
less  than  reply  that  to  him  what  had  gone  on  was  quite 
as  interesting  as  what  was  going  on,  and  that  nothing 
was  more  gratifying,  from  his  point  of  view,  than 
that  very  absence  of  change  which  had  taken  his  Ex 
cellency's  attention, —  since  any  change  would  be  a 
change  for  the  worse.  I  suspect,  however,  that  the 
Cavaliere  at  his  window  accomplished  a  good  deal  of 
desultory  reading, —  though  not  so  exclusively  in 
Kugler  and  Cavalcaselle  as  many  persons  imagined. 
Certainly  his  attendance  at  the  window  had  nothing 
to  do  with  his  sketching  ;  for  before  he  had  been  in 
his  lodging  a  single  week  he  had  taken  down  the 
whole  of  the  Lung'  Arno  over  and  over  again.  If 
any  further  explanation  of  his  window-haunting  habit 
be  demanded,  I  can  only  say  that  in  him  Quietism  was 
pretty  successfully  secularized :  he  knew  how  to  sit 
still,  and  occasionally  enjoyed  doing  so. 

Life  in  Pisa,  as  I  may  have  indicated,  is  not  strongly 
accentuated  by  positive  happenings ;  incident  is  unu 
sual,  and  drama  quite  unknown.  One's  first  visit  to 
the  Quattro  Fabbriche  may  indeed  rank  as  an  event ; 
but  the  Cavaliere's  initial  devoirs  had  been  paid  to 
that  quarter  of  the  town  many  years  before.  The 
slant  of  the  Campanile  had  no  longer  the  least  obli 
quity  to  his  eyes,  and  the  echo  within  the  Baptistery 
was  as  familiar  as  the  most  threadbare  air  of  "Norma  n 
or  "  Lucia."  The  road  up  to  La  Verruca  was  strictly 


16  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

terra  cognita;  S.  Pietro  in  Grado  was  no  longer  a 
vague  illusion  j  and  the  highway  to  Lucca  had  long 
since  been  made  familiar  by  repeated  traversings. 
The  last  feature  of  Pisa  to  become  known  to  him  was 
the  interior  of  the  Teatro  Comunale,  and  with  that,  a 
few  weeks  before  his  departure,  he  became  perfectly 
acquainted.  It  was  toward  the  end  of  the  Carnival- 
time  that  something  took  place  which  the  uneventful- 
ness  of  his  previous  months  there  seemed  to  raise  to 
the  dignity  of  an  event.  This  was  an  operatic  debut. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  the  debutante  took  any 
steps  to  solicit  the  Cavaliere's  distinguished  patron 
age,  or  that  any  one,  notwithstanding  his  recognized 
position  in  musical  circles,  made  the  least  attempt  to 
secure  his  favorable  interest ;  so  if  he  became  some 
what  deeply  involved  in  the  matter  before  the  end 
was  reached,  it  was  simply  his  own  generosity  and 
goodness  of  heart  that  brought  it  all  about.  The 
young  girl  was  a  stranger, — •  more,  a  foreigner.  Her 
precise  nationality,  I  believe,  he  never  made  any  ef 
fort  to  determine ;  but  her  isolated  position  touched 
his  sense  of  chivalry ;  his  imagination,  which  was  al 
ways  giving  him  more  or  less  trouble,  added  a  nuance 
of  the  friendless  and  forlorn  to  a  picture  that  in  other 
minds  might  have  remained  but  a  composition  (in  a 
few  hard,  definite  lines)  of  bare,  unsympathetic  fact ; 
and  he  determined  that  with  the  moral  support  of 
Hors-Concours,  himself  a  connoisseur,  he  would  call 
upon  this  detached  damsel  and  present  his  respectful 
regards. 

If  the  Signorina,  as  the  two  called  her  in  their  talks, 
had  not  been  at  home,  nothing  more  would  probably 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  17 

have  happened.  But  she  was  at  home,  and  her  recep 
tion  of  them  was  such  an  unconsciously  perfect  com 
bination  of  confiding  inexperience  and  tremulous  ap 
peal,  permeated  with  such  a  modest  sense  of  merit, 
such  a  gentle  confidence  in  her  own  ability,  that  our 
two  poor  gentlemen  succumbed  at  once.  The^ebut, 
they  determined,  should  be  a  great  success, —  an  ova 
tion,  even,  if  they  could  make  it  so ;  and  they  decided 
to  put  into  immediate  action  the  social  forces  at  their 
disposal.  The  social  forces,  in  this  case,  began  with 
the  Contessa  Nullaniuna  and  ended  with  the  Prorege 
of  Arcopia. 

The  Contessa,  who  was  universally  ranked  among 
the  beaux  esprits,  and  who  regarded  herself  as  a  wo 
man  of  genius  whose  peculiar  gifts  —  I  will  tell  you 
some  time  what  they  were  —  had  never  received  their 
full  measure  of  recognition,  fell  in  with  the  idea  at 
once;  and  when  her  cautious  inquiries  as  to  the  young 
aspirant's  abilities  were  answered, —  the  Cavaliere  told 
her  not  so  much  what  he  knew  of  them  as  what  he 
hoped  from  them,— she  signified  that  her  support 
might  be  counted  upon.  This  was  all  in  the  days 
when  the  Contessa's  emancipation,  while  indeed  un 
der  way,  was  far  from  complete;  she  could  still  take 
the  part  of  chaperon  without  occasioning  any  such 
elevation  of  eyebrows  as  a  like  attempt  on  her  part 
might  have  produced  a  year  or  two  later.  But  it  is 
only  right  to  say  that  the  Count  himself  was  a  sad 
dog,  without  the  least  perception  of  his  wife's  score  of 
charming  qualities;  in  fact,  I  have  heard  it  said  — 
but  the  Contessa  herself  never  wasted  many  words  on 
him,  so  why  should  we  ?  She  promised  to  provide  an 


18  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

auxiliary  corps  composed  of  the  jeunesse  doree  of  the 
nobility,  on  whose  concerted  efforts  the  two  gentle 
men  might  rely;  and  the  Prorege,  whose  good  nature 
was  proverbial,  and  whose  interest  in  matters  operatic 
was  perennial,  graciously  consented  to  honor  the  per 
formance  with  his  presence.  The  Prorege's  compli 
ance,  let  me  say,  was  not  merely  gracious;  it  was 
almost  heroic.  He  was  strictly  a  connoisseur,  and  his 
island-state,  he  was  not  ashamed  to  boast,  enjoyed  an 
annual  opera  season  unequaled  anywhere  between 
Carniola  and  the  Morea.  He  should  see  nothing  bet 
ter  than  the  Arcopian  subventions  were  capable  of 
achieving,  and  he  was  likely  to  see  something  not 
nearly  so  good.  He  suffered  from  inferiority  im 
mensely,  and  from  mediocrity  hardly  less ;  but  he 
would  take  the  chances  for  friendship's  sake,  and 
come, —  if  proper  accommodation  could  be  made  for 
him :  he  felt  that  for  him  to  occupy  any  other  place 
than  the  middle  box  in  the  chief  tier  would  make  the 
occasion  hopelessly  unbalanced  and  deranged.  He 
furthermore  agreed  to  smile  from  such  a  post  as  be 
nignly  as  a  man  of  his  age  could  be  expected  to. 
Though  no  longer  young,  it  enraged  him  to  be  con 
sidered  middle-aged;  and  the  garment  of  benignity, 
as  we  all  know,  hangs  gracefully  only  on  persons  who 
have  passed  the  age  of  fifty. 

The  Contessa,  prompted  and  accompanied  by  Pen- 
sieri-Vani,  made  during  the  afternoon  a  dozen  or  so 
visits  of  state.  It  was  the  Cavaliere's  desire  to  have 
the  occasion  as  noticeable  socially  as  he  hoped  it 
would  be  artistically,  and  he  wished  that  the  ladies 
of  the  resident  nobility  might  be  sufficiently  inter- 


THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  19 

ested  to  come,  and  to  come  dressed.  Hors-Concours 
employed  the  same  time  at  the  University  and  among 
the  first  comers  that  the  late  afternoon  brought  out 
upon  the  Lung'  Arno.  He  even  despatched  messen 
gers  afield  who  summoned  a  couple  of  counts  from 
their  estates  near  Livorno  and  allured  a  marchese  all 
the  way  from  Lucca.  He  knew  two  or  three  lieu 
tenants  stationed  at  Siena,  and  a  message  to  them 
brought  half  a  dozen  officers  from  the  garrison  there. 
These  matters  accomplished,  the  executive  committee 
met  in  general  session,  partitioned  and  captained  the 
house,  and  arranged  all  the  details  of  the  ovation. 
The  Seigneur  counseled  a  silver  laurel-wreath  and  a 
bracelet  set  with  rubies,  for  instance ;  and  then  a  son 
net,  which  they  might  compose  between  them,  could 
be  printed  on  pink  paper,  and,  at  the  proper  moment, 
might  come  fluttering  down  by  the  hundred  (as  he 
had  once  seen  done  at  Milan)  from  the  dizzy  heights 
of  the  paradiso.  But  the  Cavaliere  pointed  out  that 
their  idea  of  the  beneficiary's  abilities  was  much  too 
nebulous  as  yet  to  justify  any  such  preparations  as 
these,  and  that  silver  laurel- wreaths  and  the  like  were 
not  to  be  picked  up  here  and  there  at  a  moment's 
notice.  In  the  end  they  decided  to  make  the  demon 
stration  largely  floral.  For  the  cavatina  adagio  canta- 
Ule  of  the  young  nun  in  Atto  Primo  a  large  but  sim 
ple  bouquet  of  white  lilies  might  answer.  In  the  trio 
toward  the  end  of  Atto  Secondo,  at  court,  the  motives 
of  the  scoundrelly  grand  duke  and  the  intriguing 
maid  of  honor  might  be  hinted  at  in  two  or  three  set 
pieces  of  variegated  roses.  In  the  third  act,  where 
the  persecuted  maiden  has  her  long  scena  in  the 


20  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI -VANI. 

gipsy  glen,  whither  she  has  gone  to  learn  her  fate, 
the  semi-pastoral  nature  of  her  surroundings  would 
justify,  perhaps,  a  pair  of  love-birds  in  a  gilded  cage 
wreathed  with  violets  and  smilax.  And  in  the  fourth 
act  the  tremendous  scene  in  which  the  dread  monster 
slays  her  gray-haired  sire  and  the  hapless  maid  goes 
raving  mad  upon  her  marriage  morn  should  be  fol 
lowed  by  a  great  fusillade  of  bouquets,  a  storm  of 
evvivas  and  bravas,  the  house  should  "rise,"  and  if 
enthusiasm  could  be  made  to  mount  so  far,  the  stu 
dents  should  draw  the  prima  donna's  carriage  home  in 
triumph,  and  she  should  treat  the  enraptured  throng 
to  a  serenade  from  her  balcony,  under  the  chaperonage 
of  La  Nullaniuna  and  the  distinguished  patronage  of 
the  body  of  the  nobility.  To  such  lengths  can  pure 
benevolence  and  sympathy  go  when  once  started  on 
the  way. 

I  shall  have  but  little  to  say  regarding  the  person 
in  whose  behalf  so  many  efforts  were  made.  The 
Cavaliere  may  have  been  interested  in  the  Signorina, 
but  our  interest,  of  course,  should  be  in  him ;  and  if 
I  give  any  account  of  the  debut  at  all,  it  is  altogether 
because  you  have  a  right  to  know  to  what  extent  his 
little  plan  succeeded.  The  first  act,  then,  went  off  just 
as  he  had  hoped.  The  house  was  crowded,  and  was  as 
brilliant  as  could  have  been  expected  in  a  provincial 
capital.  The  Prorege  sat  well  to  the  front  of  his  box, 
and  wore,  like  the  dear  good  fellow  that  he  was,  a 
round  half-dozen  of  his  most  esteemed  decorations. 
The  debutante  was  pretty  and  interesting ;  she  felt  her 
self  among  friends,  and  after  her  first  nervousness  had 
passed  off  she  revealed  a  very  pretty  talent.  The  audi- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  21 

ence  seemed  disposed  to  be  pleased,  and  the  applause 
provoked  by  the  presentation  of  the  bouquet  was  suf 
ficient  to  precipitate  a  recall  at  the  end  of  the  act.  In 
the  second  act  she  did  even  better  5  her  vocalism 
gained  in  confidence  and  brilliancy,  her  acting  in 
fire  and  fervor.  Yet  the  house,  as  the  Cavaliere  could 
not  but  feel  as  he  searched  out  the  Seigneur's  gaze 
across  the  auditorium,  did  not  warm  to  correspond. 
As  the  second  floral  demonstration  passed  up, — 
eclipsed,  as  their  first  had  been,  by  others  that  indi 
cated  an  intimacy  of  acquaintance  and  a  prodigality 
of  expenditure  which  left  them  far  behind, — the 
startled  Cavaliere,  who  had  meant  to  persuade,  not 
to  compel,  became  conscious  of  a  cold  wave  blowing 
over  the  place ;  the  applause  was  very  meager,  and 
such  notes  of  admiration  as  were  expressed  at  all 
seemed  pointed  almost  exclusively  —  except  as  con 
cerned  the  officers  and  a  few  of  the  students — to 
the  baritone  and  the  contralto.  As  the  third  act 
progressed  toward  its  impassioned  finale,  the  house 
sank  into  a  cold  silence  which  to  the  nonplussed 
Cavaliere  seemed  burdened  with  a  contemptuous 
apathy.  The  love-birds  passed  up  through  an  at 
mosphere  of  mere  cold  and  quizzical  curiosity,  and 
piercing  the  silence  there  came  a  single  hiss, — one, 
but  from  an  influential  quarter.  The  Prorege  had 
retired  to  the  back  of  his  box.  The  Contessa  bit  her 
lip  in  silence  behind  her  fan,  but  her  eyes  flashed,  for 
that  hiss  had  come  from  one  on  whom  she  had  confi 
dently  counted.  The  Cavaliere,  pale  and  disconcerted, 
Mfiw  his  own  fears  reflected  in  the  face  of  a  young  man 
in  a  box  opposite, — a  tall,  slender,  blond  youth  with 


22  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

a  combined  redundancy  of  mustache  and  paucity  of 
chest  which  but  one  land  in  all  the  wide  world  pro 
duces.  If  the  forecasting  of  the  immediate  future 
were  able  to  make  a  total  stranger  apprehensive,  could 
he  himself  longer  bear  to  stay  ?  He  took  up  his  hat, 
and  left  his  post.  He  saw  his  mistake, —  the  house 
quite  refused  to  be  bought  up  and  delivered 5  but  the 
result  of  his  mistake  he  dared  not  stay  to  view, — 
the  coming  cataclysm  he  had  not  the  heart  to  witness. 
He  left  the  building  with  a  cold  sinking  in  his  breast, 
and  went  out  into  the  Passeggiata,  where,  a  moment 
later,  Hors-Concours  joined  him,  and  where  they  ex 
changed  regrets  and  self-condemnations  ad  libitum. 
It  was  a  failure,  and  they  made  it  so.  With  the  best 
intentions,  they  had  incurred  the  worst.  The  Cava- 
liere  had  attempted  to  pull  the  wires  as  a  kind  of 
special  providence,  and  had  been  ignominiously  un 
veiled.  He  had  perhaps  made  himself  ridiculous, 
and  had,  in  all  probability,  too,  robbed  his  protegee  of 
such  future  as  Fortune,  until  now  not  too  pointedly 
challenged,  may  have  been  holding  in  store  for  her. 
The  two  spent,  in  fact,  as  mauvais  a  quart  d'heure  as 
one  is  often  called  upon  to  endure. 

As  they  entered  with  increasing  discomfort  and 
depression  upon  their  second  quart  d'Jieure,  some 
thing  occurred  to  startle  them  both ;  for  with  a  total 
unexpectedness  an  unmistakable  burst  of  applause 
came  out  to  them  from  the  theater.  As  it  died  away, 
a  few  notes  in  a  high,  sweet  soprano  voice  floated  out 
upon  the  evening  air.  Presently  another  burst  of 
applause  followed.  Shortly  after,  the  mingled  strains 
of  four  or  five  mixed  voices,  supported  by  a  Hull 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  23 

volume  of  choral  and  orchestral  harmony,  swelled 
out  through  the  open  windows.  Then  came  another 
outbreak  of  approval, —  a  great  union  of  bravas  and 
evvivas.  The  tumult  grew  with  every  moment;  the 
applause  became  more  vociferous  and  more  contin 
uous,  and  at  last  the  doors  swung  open,  the  throng 
rushed  forth,  and  the  debutante,  clamorously  sur 
rounded  by  an  eager  band  of  giovani  Pisani,  was 
escorted  in  triumph  through  the  Lung'  Arno  from 
the  theater  to  her  hotel.  Without  the  help  of  the 
Cavaliere  and  his  friends  —  in  spite  of  their  help  — 
she  had  worked  out  with  pluck  and  ability  her  own 
salvation.  The  Cavaliere  recognized  at  once  the  lim 
itations  that  nature  and  circumstance  had  placed 
upon  him.  He  perceived  that  he  was  less  fitted  to 
play  the  part  of  special  providence  than  he  had  pre 
viously  supposed.  Called  upon  to  receive  numerous 
congratulations  upon  the  success  of  his  protegee, — 
everybody  knew  his  part  in  the  affair  now, —  he  bore 
up  with  a  composed  humility  that  struck  Hors-Con- 
cours  as  the  most  touching  thing  in  the  world;  and 
he  brought  out  from  this  experience  the  immeasura 
ble  consolation  that  comes  from  perceiving  that  very 
frequently  in  this  sadly  twisted  world  things,  if  only 
left  to  their  own  courses,  have  a  way  of  coining  out 
right,  after  all. 


Ill 


TUSCAN  TOWNS:   THE   "MADONNA  INCOGNITA" 


\HE  PROREGE,  after 
that  little  experience 
at  Pisa,  where  he  had 
so  narrowly  escaped 
becoming  involved  in 
what  he  was  pleased 
to  term  "complica 
tions,"  and  where 
his  dignity  had 
been  snatched,  one 
may  say,  as  a  brand 
from  the  burning, 
seemed  to  feel  that 
a  departure  from 
the  scene  (a  de 
parture  arranged 
take  place,  of  course, 
without  undue  precipitation  and  d  propos  of  noth 
ing  except  a  natural  and  easily  understood  desire 
for  change)  might  form  the  most  appreciative  trib 
ute  to  the  merciful  narrowness  of  his  escape.  His 
first  thought  called  for  nothing  less  than  an  im- 


24 


THE   CHEVALIEE   OF   PENSIERI -VANI.  25 

mediate  return  to  Arcopia  itself,  where,  notwith 
standing  the  peculiar  circumstances  attending  his 
departure  from  it, —  circumstances  that  I  shall  pres 
ently  touch  upon, —  he  felt  that  his  long-neglected 
yet,  as  he  hoped,  still  loyal  subjects  might  be  de 
pended  upon  to  design  and  execute  a  signally  worthy 
and  nattering  reception  ;  for  they  belonged  to  a  race 
quite  capable  of  imposing  the  requisite  degree  of 
plasticity  upon  the  expression  of  their  emotions,  and 
might  very  reasonably  be  expected  to  translate,  with 
unerring  accuracy,  their  long  pent  up  feelings  into 
banners  and  salvos  and  triumphal  arches  and  possi 
bly  bands  of  young  women  in  white  robes  and  starry 
crowns.  But  his  second  thought  suggested  that 
although  he  had  forgiven  the  Arcopians,  the  Arco- 
pians  might  not  yet  have  forgiven  him ;  and  it  also 
occurred  to  him  that  in  matters  of  government  the 
great  principle  of  laissez-faire  had  hitherto  been  sel 
dom  accorded  adequate  opportunity  for  unimpeded 
play,  and  that  he  might  therefore  perhaps  contribute 
as  successfully  as  in  any  other  mode  to  the  pleasure 
and  profit  of  his  people,  or  at  least  to  the  advance 
ment  of  political  economy  to  the  position  of  an  exact 
science,  by  letting  well  enough  alone  for  yet  a  little 
longer.  It  was  on  this  second  thought  —  with  a 
modification  —  that  he  proceeded  to  act.  This  modi 
fication,  it  might  be  well  to  state  frankly,  came,  in  set 
terms,  from  private  intelligence  of  a  certain  Peru- 
gino,  just  brought  to  light,  and  as  yet  almost  com 
pletely  unknown,  and  to  be  found,  should  fortune 
favor,  in  a  certain  small  mid-Tuscan  town.  The 
Prorege  loved  Arcopia,  of  course,  but  he  loved  Tus- 


26  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI  -VANI. 

cany  even  better;  and  he  was  thankful  enough  for  so 
good  an  excuse  to  make  a  carriage  journey  toward 
the  Val  di  Chiana  all  in  the  month  of  May.  He 
arranged  the  details  of  the  excursion  one  cool  even 
ing  on  the  Lung'  Arno  at  Pisa,  as  he  sat  with  a 
few  friends  before  the  Gaffe  del?  Ussero,  while  the 
flower-girls  were  offering  their  violets  and  a  dark- 
eyed  little  boy  was  performing  wonders  on  a  rudely 
fashioned  shepherd's  pipe.  In  the  intervals  of  the 
demands  for  the  pro-regal  coin, —  our  prince's  dignity 
was  not  always  equal  to  his  good  nature, —  it  was 
arranged  that  two  of  his  companions  to  Montepul- 
ciano  —  I  may  as  well  acknowledge  that  the  picture 
was  spoken  of  as  to  be  found  there  —  should  be  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  and  Hors-Concours.  Pensieri-Vani  loved 
Tuscany  more  than  the  Prorege  ever  dreamt  of  lov 
ing  it,  but  he  made  no  pretense  of  an  inordinate 
affection  for  Perugino,  whose  feminine  and  finicky 
genius  aroused  in  him  a  certain  feeling  of  contemptu 
ous  impatience.  He  told  the  Prorege  so  in  as  many 
words;  but  as  the  Prorege  repeated  his  invitation, 
and  somewhat  insistently,  too,  it  may  be  surmised 
that  his  appreciation  of  the  Cavaliere  was  not  founded 
on  grounds  altogether  and  merely  artistic.  In  fact, 
the  Prorege  had  an  ever-present  sense  of  the  dues 
of  his  position,  and  if  he  were  about  to  make  an  in 
formal  excursion  through  certain  of  the  Tuscan 
provinces,  it  was  essential  that  he  did  so  properly 
attended  and  accompanied.  The  Cavaliere,  as  a 
gentleman  of  taste  and  cultivation,  and  as  an  indi 
vidual,  too,  who  would  find  no  difficulty  in  gracefully 
subordinating  himself  to  the  great  personage  whose 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANI.  27 

society  he  was  invited  to  share,  would  be  likely  to 
prove  an  invaluable  auxiliary.  And  if  he  did  not 
like  Perugino,  he  knew  him  when  he  saw  him,  infal 
libly.  The  Prorege  could  erect  a  cathedral  or  conduct 
an  opera  from  the  ground  up,  or  so  he  thought ;  but 
as  regarded  the  great  Umbrian  master,  he  dared  not 
accept  his  own  opinion  as  final. 

To  inaugurate  this  artistic  expedition,  the  Cavaliere 
gave  a  little  dinner  at  his  lodgings  in  Oltr7  Arno,  and 
the  Prorege  (who  lounged  away  the  days  of  his  Tus 
can  sojourn  in  fatigue  dress,  as  we  may  say)  gra 
ciously  accepted  an  invitation  to  be  present.  They 
ended  with  a  toast  to  the  success  of  their  quest, — 
their  quest  for  the  "  Madonna  Incognita," —  and  then, 
leaving  the  graceful  Florentine  flask  empty  on  the 
table,  they  passed  on  to  the  sala,  and  sat  at  dusk  at 
the  open  windows  overlooking  the  river,  while  the 
Cavaliere,  seated  at  the  piano  in  a  darkling  corner  of 
the  room,  gave  out  a  pleasant  ripple  and  flow  of  im 
provisation  until  the  moon  looked  in  and  invited  them 
out  for  a  stroll  through  the  clear-cut  shadows  of  the 
silent  streets.  As  I  say,  the  Cavaliere  played  for 
them.  How  long  he  played  he  himself  had  no  idea; 
and  not  one  of  the  others  ever  thought  to  count  the 
time.  He  played  with  a  wonderful  ease  and  facility, 
with  a  charming  delicacy  and  sweetness,  with  an  in 
exhaustible  fertility  of  invention,  with  a  most  refined 
sense  of  the  conditions  of  place,  time,  occasion.  Hors- 
Concours,  to  whom  his  friend's  delightful  gift  was  a 
never-failing  source  of  pride  and  pleasure,  sat  silent 
with  a  placid  content;  and  the  Prorege,  who  had 
never  listened  to  the  Cavaliere  before,  and  who  was 


28  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

sadly  susceptible  for  a  man  of  his  years,  leaned 
thoughtfully  upon  the  window-sill,  and  sighed,  as 
he  looked  up  at  the  first  faint  stars,  a  long,  deep  sigh 
of  utter  peace  and  rest.  It  almost  seemed  like  Pisa 
itself  —  placid,  nodding  Pisa  —  set  to  music.  I  will 
tell  you  at  an  early  opportunity  how  the  Cavaliere 
gained  his  title,  but  not  just  now. 

The  Prorege,  after  this,  was  more  than  ever  deter 
mined  that  Pensieri-Vani  should  be  one  of  the  party ; 
before  this  he  had  always  treated  him  with  courtesy, 
but  after  this  his  manner  was  one  of  marked  consid 
eration,  and  even  of  affectionate  regard.  Music  was 
the  Prorege's  passion,  next  to  architecture  and  the 
decorative  arts ;  and  the  favored  possessor  of  such 
a  gift  as  that  which  the  Cavaliere  displayed  never 
failed  to  evoke  his  generous  appreciation  and  a  re 
spect  that  was  almost  reverence.  Pensieri-Vani,  now 
doubly  bound  to  the  pro-regal  train,  went,  of  course, 
as  arranged,  to  Montepulciano ;  though  to  have 
heard  his  little  party  denominated  a  "  train "  would 
have  caused  the  Prorege  to  laugh  outright :  for  they 
were  only  six,  counting  the  vetturino  and  the  valet, 
and  the  carriage,  devoid  of  any  distinguishing  mark, 
might  have  come  from  a  public  rimesa,  as  indeed  it 
did.  It  was  fortunate,  too,  that  such  was  the  case ; 
the  Prorege's  own  equipage  would  never  have  sur 
vived  the  long-continued  journey  to  which  the  drive 
Montepulciano- ward  was  but  the  prelude.  For  the 
Franciscans  of  Montepulciano,  when  met  by  the  ar 
dent  demands  of  the  Prorege,  confessed  a  reluctant 
ignorance  —  reluctant,  but  utter  and  complete  —  of 
the  supposititious  masterpiece.  They  offered  their 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  29 

views,  their  wines,  their  missals,  their  wood-carvings, 
their  Lippis,  their  vespers,  and  their  beds, —  for  the 
day  was  now  rather  far  spent, — but  they  could  not 
offer  the  slightest  information  about  the  "  Madonna 
Incognita."  The  Prorege  sipped  their  wines  indif 
ferently,  and  listened  abstractedly  to  their  vespers, 
neither  being  in  any  degree  a  substitute  for  the 
Perugino;  but  he  accepted  their  sleeping-accommo 
dations  unreservedly,  for  he  was  somewhat  fatigued 
and  exasperated;  besides,  he  had  no  idea  of  betaking 
his  august  person  to  a  public  inn.  A  supper  of  black 
bread  and  sugarless  tea  did  more  to  pull  him  down 
than  all  the  glories  of  a  full-flooded  Tuscan  sunset 
could  do  to  set  him  up,  and  he  went  to  bed  rather 
early  in  a  somewhat  dejected  condition.  But  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  and  Hors-Concours,  who  cared  very  little 
what  they  ate  or  where  they  slept  when  any  recherche 
presentation  of  artistic  products  or  any  notable  dis 
closure  of  natural  phenomena  was  to  be  anticipated, 
sat  out  in  the  twinkling  starlight  for  hours  after  the 
self-indulgent  Prorege  had  retired,  and  turned  in 
themselves  only  when  the  midnight  bell  sounded 
hoarsely  from  the  old  cinque-cento  tower  above  their 
heads ;  both  considering,  though  they  never  breathed 
it  to  their  host,  that  full  recompense  for  a  missing 
Perugino  might  not  altogether  fail  on  a  summer  night 
in  the  Gothic  loggia  of  a  Tuscan  monastery. 

But  the  dejection  of  the  Prorege  received  an  appre 
ciable  lightening  on  the  dawn  of  the  morrow,  and 
that,  too,  at  almost  the  very  moment  set  for  their  re 
turn  to  Pisa.  For  just  as  the  vetturino  was  bringing 
the  equipage  to  order,  and  the  monastery  court  was 


30  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

filled  with  a  sort  of  tempered  ecclesiastical  bustle 
over  the  departure  of  the  Prorege's  party,  a  certain 
obscure,  blear-eyed  old  brother  came  ambling  for 
ward  to  say  that  perhaps  their  search  might  not  turn 
out  fruitless,  after  all;  he  had  heard  tell,  he  thought, 
of  some  picture  or  other  lately  brought  to  light  at 
either  Montalcino  or  Montefiaseone,  which  might  be 
the  one  they  were  in  search  of.  The  Prorege,  in 
stantly  detecting  the  similarity  of  names,  began  to 
beam  with  hope,  and  could  either  have  hugged  this 
unprepossessing  oldfrate  for  joy,  or  have  shaken  him 
for  his  stupidity.  Which  was  the  more  likely  place? 
he  demanded.  The  old  fellow  could  hardly  say ;  but 
Montalcino  was  the  nearer.  Was  the  picture  a  Peru- 
gino  ?  Ah,  it  might  be ;  he  had  heard  it  said  that  — 
yes,  probably;  oh,  yes, —  undoubtedly  a  Perugino. 
Was  it  a  Madonna?  Who  could  tell? — and  yet  some 
one  had  been  overheard  to  remark  that  —  The  Pro 
rege  loftily  cut  him  short,  and  briefly  ordered  the 
vetturino  to  take  the  road  for  Montalcino. 

At  the  risk  of  having  you  declare  that  I  have  over 
stated  the  depth  and  constancy  of  the  ruler  of  Arco- 
pia's  good  nature,  I  must  confess  that  the  Prorege 
this  morning  was  in  a  frame  of  mind  when  it  was  an 
easy  matter  to  rub  him  the  wrong  way ;  and  it  was 
the  ungracious  part  thrust  upon  the  charming  town 
of  Pienza,  their  first  stopping-place,  to  rub  him  rather 
severely.  As  he  passed  in  survey  the  various  churches 
and  palaces  which  the  felicitous  fortune  of  ^Eiieas 
Sylvius  had  permitted  him  to  erect  in  his  native  town, 
his  will  and  his  architectural  preferences  quite  un 
hampered  by  local  opposition  and  pecuniary  difficul- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  31 

ties,  the  poor  Prorege  gave  vent  to  a  succession  of 
deep  inward  groans.  He  contrasted  the  good  fortune 
of  the  happy  Piccolomini  in  Pienza  with  his  own  dura 
sorte  at  Arcopia,  where  his  last  great  architectural 
project  had  been  cruelly  clipped  of  its  fair  propor 
tions  by  an  unlooked-for  accession  of  Arcopian  econ 
omy.  He  had  set  his  heart  upon  embellishing  the 
long  facade  of  the  viceregal  residence  in  the  Piazza 
Grande  with  a  magnificent  portico  of  twenty  neo- 
lonic  columns,  each  of  the  twenty  to  be  of  one  un 
broken  block  of  cipollino,  and  the  frieze  of  their 
common  entablature  to  be  enriched  with  certain  sump 
tuous  designs  of  Roman  cosmato-work ;  but  the  Con- 
siglio  Maggiore,  much  to  his  astonishment  and  dismay, 
had  made  difficulties, —  had  almost,  if  I  may  venture 
to  pen  the  words,  made  opposition.  The  funds  were 
expected  to  come  from  the  public  treasury,  and  the 
public  treasury,  they  said,  was  hardly  prepared  just 
then  to  stand  the  strain.  The  Prorege  in  formal  ses 
sion  declared  that  in  a  matter  of  this  kind  the  last 
thing  he  thought  of  was  his  own  personal  gratifica 
tion  ;  the  first  consideration  with  him  was  ever  the 
honor  and  glory  of  Arcopia.  None  of  his  drafts  on 
the  public  treasury,  he  maintained,  had  been  exclu 
sively  for  his  own  individual  benefit:  whenever  his 
private  desires  were  to  be  gratified,  his  own  private 
purse  met  the  charge.  What,  now,  but  his  delicate 
conscientious  scruples  had  condemned  him  to  navi 
gate  the  Adriatic  by  means  of  any  chance  craft  that 
might  present  itself,  while  his  compeer,  the  Exarch 
of  Albania,  cruised  through  the  Levant  in  a  private 
yacht  that  was  a  dream  of  luxury  ?  Had  he  not,  on 


32  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

the  other  hand,  made  frequent  contributions  for  the 
public  good  from  his  own  privy  purse  ?  Did  not  his 
own  share  of  the  annual  opera  season's  expenses  equal 
that  drawn  from  the  public  treasury  and  that  con 
tributed  by  the  resident  nobility  together?  To  all  of 
which  the  Consiglio  made  reply — but  this  is  no  place 
to  rehearse  the  controversy.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
the  matter  had  ended  in  a  miserable,  sordid  compro 
mise, —  a  compromise  derogatory  to  the  viceregal 
dignity,  and  degrading  to  the  fair  name  of  the  town. 
The  Prorege  was  permitted  a  colonnade  of  twelve 
columns,  without  any  cosmato-work  whatever.  His 
indignation  was  boundless.  He  had  never  been  free 
from  the  harassings  and  the  embarrassments  that 
must  annoy  the  mere  representative  of  a  monarch 
who  is  himself  bound  down  by  all  manner  of  consti 
tutional  restrictions  and  limitations,  and  now,  more 
than  ever,  it  seemed  to  him  that  a  mild  despotism  was 
the  only  rational  and  practicable  form  of  government. 
In  the  first  hour  of  his  rage  he  thought  of  giving  up 
Arcopia  altogether,  and  of  going  straight  to  Paris  for 
a  permanent  residence ;  but,  as  his  anger  cooled,  he 
found  it  advisable  to  adopt  a  measure  a  little  less  ex 
treme.  To  show  his  sense  of  the  indignity  placed 
upon  him  by  his  subjects,  he  would  leave  them  for  a 
time  and  arrange  for  a  stay  in,  perhaps,  Florence; 
then,  when  his  subjects,  in  deep  contrition,  should  re 
call  him,  he  should  be  within  distance  to  respond  at 
once.  But  one  thing  was  certain :  the  viceregal  com 
pany,  ballet,  fiddlers,  and  all,  should  be  transferred  to 
Ancona,  or  Parma,  or  even,  if  need  be,  to  Gratz,  and 
the  abomination  of  (musical)  desolation  should  brood 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  33 

over  the  Arcopian  capital.  This  fell  determination 
accounts  for  the  presence  of  the  Prorege  in  Tuscany; 
but  a  few  months  of  his  self-imposed  exile  had  largely 
soothed  the  rancor  in  his  breast,  and  he  was  now  al 
most  ready,  as  I  have  elsewhere  indicated,  to  turn  his 
steps  back  toward  his  banned  and  blighted  city.  It 
is  easy  to  understand,  now,  why  Pienza  should  have 
proven  so  irritating  to  him,  and  to  feel,  too,  that  his 
presence  that  evening  in  the  theater  at  Pisa  was  an 
exhibition  of  almost  heroic  fortitude. 

Well,  the  Prorege  passed  on  through  Pienza,  quite 
refusing  to  dismount  or  even  to  halt,  and  pressed  on 
to  Montalcino.  I  shall  not  set  down  the  details  of  his 
journey,  for  really  the  political  situation  in  Arcopia  is 
a  theme  more  interesting  to  me  than  a  dozen  Perugi- 
nos,  and  if  I  go  on  to  give  the  conclusion  of  the  search 
for  the  "  Madonna  Incognita,'7  it  is  only  because  I  have 
given  the  beginning  of  it.  To  be  brief,  our  searchers 
met  with  little  better  success  at  Montalcino  than  at 
Montepulciano.  They  finally  unearthed  a  weak-kneed, 
weazened  parish-priest  who  had  recently  received  a 
visit  from  a  brother  priest  who  came  some  miles  from 
the  northward;  and  this  friend  had  dropped  a  word 
relative  to  a  certain  painting  that  a  friend  of  his,  a 
Count  So-and-so,  had  lately  come  into  possession  of. 
And  this  ecclesiastic  was  to  be  found  in  San  Gimi- 
gnano.  His  Excellency  could  doubtless  reach  Oliveto 
Maggiore,  or  possibly  Siena  itself,  by  dusk;  and  from 
Siena  to  San  Gimignano,  next  day,  was  but  a  trifle  of 
two  or  three  hours.  This  thing  his  Excellency  directly 
concluded  to  do.  So  with  a  frown  of  impatience  he 
turned  his  back  upon  Montalcino,  and  the  futile  smiles 


34  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

of  Monte  Amiata,  and  struck  northward  through  the 
sand-hills  toward  Siena.  In  that  ancient  capital  he 
would  find  such  lodgment  and  repose  as  befitted  one 
so  storm-tossed  and  so  august,  and  would  depute  to 
his  companions  the  excursion  to  San  Gimignano,  which 
was  sure  to  involve  much  worry  and  fatigue,  and  might 
bring  him  no  nearer  to  his  goal  than  before. 

Accordingly,  the  next  morning  at  nine,  Hors-Con- 
cours  and  Pensieri-Vani  left  Siena  by  the  Porta  Ca- 
mollia  in  a  brisk  little  chaise,  and  lunched  at  twelve 
under  the  belle  torri  of  the  most  unique  of  Tuscan 
towns.  It  was  a  delicious  drive  quite  of  itself, 
and  the  great  end  in  view  added  a  piquancy  to  the 
excursion  that  not  every  one  who  posts  toward  San 
Gimignano  can  hope  to  enjoy.  The  weather  was 
charming — bright,  yet  cool;  the  country  was  ravish 
ing,  being  in  the  first  full  green  of  spring;  and 
the  country-folk,  flocking  to  or  from  some  great 
festa,  filled  the  winding  and  undulating  roads  with 
a  gay  excess  of  life  and  color.  The  cypressed  villas, 
the  ruinous  old  abbeys  in  delightful  Gothic  brick 
work,  the  campanili  of  village  churches  rising  from 
the  olived  slopes  of  hillsides,  the  twisted  graces  of 
vine-wreathed  pergole,  the  wide  flapping  straw  hats 
of  the  women  trudging  by,  the  jauntily  carried  jack 
ets  of  the  men,  the  gay  romping  of  blossom-snatch 
ing  children,  the  bustle  of  roadside  osteriej  the  slow 
jolting  of  ox-carts  along  the  common  highway,  the 
sturdy-arched,  low-roofed  farm-houses,  the  flowers, 
the  sunshine,  the  lightly  stirring  breeze, —  all  the  thou 
sand  things  that  combine  in  that  inexhaustible  feast 
of  grace  and  beauty  and  social  and  historical  interest 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  35 

which  Tuscany  knows  so  well  how  to  spread,—  caused 
our  two  friends  more  than  once  quite  to  lose  sight  of 
the  great  undertaking  that  they  had  been  commissioned 
to  carry  through  5  and,  for  the  half -hour  previous  to 
the  first  appearance  of  San  Gimignano's  high-set  coro 
net  of  towers,  I  doubt  if  the  "  Madonna  Incognita  "  re- 
"  ceived  from  them  the  tribute  of  a  single  thought. 

Once  within  the  town,  however,  the  Madonna  be 
came  the  subject  of  the  most  poignant  interest.     The 
good  ecclesiastic  upon  whom  the  Prorege  had  relied 
to  terminate  their  peregrinations,  or  at  least  to  in 
dicate  the  manner  in  which  they  themselves  might 
terminate  them,  was  away  from  home  for  a  day  or 
two,  and  his  present  whereabouts  was  quite  unknown. 
And  the  Count  on  his  estate  near  Colle  ?  they  asked 
of  the  maid-servant  who  met  them  in  her  master's 
absence.     Oh,  the  Count  Nonsivede?    He  had  gone 
only  yesterday  to  Volterra,  to  carry  a  picture  to  an 
acquaintance  of  his  who  was  a  dealer  in  anticMtd  — 
a  quaint  little  old  fellow  who  —  but  a  truce  to  the 
maid's  chatter.     The  picture,  at  last,  was  distantly  in 
sight.    It  was  at  Volterra,  and  on  to  Volterra  they 
must  hasten,  after  sending  back  word  to  the  Prorege 
to  join  them  there  as  promptly  as  possible.     For  the 
first  time  during  the  chase  Pensieri-Vani  began  to 
feel  a  real  interest  in  the  "Unknown  Madonna";  he 
resolved  that  he  would  devote  himself,  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  else,  to  the  task  of  bringing  this  missing  maid 
and  mother  to  the  light.     He  cared  no  more  than 
before  for  the  picture  as  a  Peru  gin  o  pure  and  simple, 
but  as  a  Perugino  that  stubbornly  refused  to  material 
ize  it  had  begun  to  waken  his  liveliest  interest. 


36  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

And  yet,  when  the  Prorege  arrived  at  Volterra, — 
most  bleak  and  dreary  of  towns, —  with  what  a  tale 
were  his  two  young  friends  constrained  to  meet  him  ! 
The  picture,  still  on  its  flight,  had  gone  yet  farther  to 
the  north  j  the  antiquarian  to  whom  they  had  traced 
it  had  just  left  town  with  it,  and  had  carried  it  —  of 
all  places  in  the  world,  the  Prorege  gasped  —  to  Pisa. 
It  might  be  found  in  a  certain  little  street  in  Oltr7 
Arno:  so  the  antiquarian's  grandson  informed  the  im 
patient  party;  and  the  impatient  party,  scarce  wait 
ing  to  hear  the  boy's  last  words,  started  off  post-haste 
to  the  very  town  from  which  their  long  quest  had 
been  entered  upon. 

For  now,  if  the  Prorege  designed  to  become  the 
owner  of  the  picture,  every  hour  had  its  value.  He 
trembled  to  think  of  the  pitfalls  dug  for  the  pre 
cious  Perugino  in  Pisa.  There  was  the  opulent  Duke 
of  Avon  and  Severn  in  his  appartamento  at  the  Vitto- 
ria,  who  would  give  almost  any  price  the  owner  might 
demand.  If  he  missed  the  prize,  there  was  the  art- 
crazed  old  Margravine  of  Schwahlbach-Schrecken- 
stein  at  the  Pension  Ludwig,  who  would  move  heaven 
and  earth  to  gain  possession  of  it.  If  she  failed,  there 
was  still  the  boundlessly  wealthy  Mr.  Occident,  who 
had  taken  for  the  season  the  whole  Palazzo  Camera- 
Mobiglio,  and  who  would  pay  a  price  at  which  even 
the  Duke  or  the  Marg-ravine  would  stick.  And  last 
and  worst,  there  was  the  agent  of  that  odious  Floren 
tine  picture-dealer,  Ladronini,  rather  than  see  the 
painting  fall  into  whose  hands  the  Prorege  would 
hear,  and  with  delight,  that  it  had  been  burned  to 
ashes  or  torn  completely  to  shreds  and  tatters.  If 


THE  CHEVALIER  OP  PENSIEKI -VANI.  37 

Arcopia  was  ever  to  be  adorned  with  this  master 
piece  and  peace-offering,  these  various  people,  all  and 
singular,  must  be  circumvented,  anticipated,  outwit 
ted,  duped,  defrauded— anything,  everything;  all  con 
siderations  of  honor  and  courtesy  must  be  thrown 
to  the  winds,  for  in  a  case  like  this  the  end  amply 
justified  the  means. 

It  was  almost  dusk  when  the  viceregal  equipage 
traversed  Oltr*  Arno  and  entered  the  Via  del  Quadro. 
But  it  was  light  enough  for  the  Prorege  to  observe, 
with  a  horrible  pang,  a  cab  standing  before  the  door 
of  No.  14,  and  to  see  an  old  woman  who  had  just 
hobbled  out  get  into  the  cab  and  drive  rapidly  away. 
He  gave  a  deep,  anguished  groan ;  for  the  old  woman 
was  none  other  than  the  Margravine  of  Schwahlbach- 
Schrecken  stein  herself  in  flesh  and  blood.  With  what 
an  excess  of  trepidation  and  suspense  did  the  whole 
party  immediately  descend  and  begin  the  dark  and 
crooked  ascent  that  led,  flight  after  flight,  roof  ward ! 
How  the  Prorege,  once  before  the  door,  could  scarcely 
nerve  himself  to  knock  !  There  was  still  a  chance,  of 
course  —  but  a  chance  how  poor,  how  slender  —  one 
in  a  hundred,  one  in  a  thousand.  The  poor  Prorege, 
with  a  bit  of  dumb-show,  signified  to  Pensieri -Vani 
to  take  the  thing  into  his  own  hands,  and  to  proceed 
as  he  deemed  proper  in  the  premises.  Pensieri- Vani 
promptly  knocked,  and  the  door,  after  a  moment's  de 
lay,  opened — and  on  the  thousandth  chance.  The  man 
was  there,  the  picture  was  there,  the  opportunity  to 
purchase  was  there.  For  the  Margravine,  after  throw 
ing  a  quick  glance  upon  the  canvas,  had  given  vent 
to  an  indifferent  "  humph"  and  posted  off  again;  and 


38  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

no  one  else  had  yet  had  an  opportunity  to  inspect  it. 
The  Prorege  demanded  its  instant  forthcoming.  The 
little  old  man  settled  his  wig,  walked  to  a  corner  of 
the  room,  drew  back  a  small  black  curtain,  and  with 
an  air  of  timid  expectation  stood  waiting  for  the  ver 
dict.  The  Prorege  gave  one  look  of  despair  at  the 
picture,  threw  a  glance  of  utter  disappointment  and 
defeat  upon  his  companions  in  the  quest,  and  sank 
limp  and  woebegone  into  the  nearest  chair.  The 
picture  was  no  more  a  Perugino  than  he  was  a  Peru- 
gino,  or  the  Campo  Santo  was  a  Perugino,  or  the  moon 
was  a  Perugino.  It  was  not  a  copy  of  Perugino,  nor 
an  imitation  of  Perugino,  nor  of  the  school  of  Peru 
gino.  There  was  nothing  of  Perugino  in  it,  or  of  it, 
or  about  it.  Accidente!  Accidente! 

The  poor  little  antiquarian  acknowledged,  with  a 
rueful  indignation,  that  the  picture  before  them  was 
not  a  Perugino.  Neither  was  it,  as  his  other  visitor 
had  expected  to  find  it,  a  Del  Sarto.  But  it  was,  he 
felt  sure  —  and  his  weak  old  voice  trembled  with  a 
triumphant  protest — it  was  a — Pensieri-Vani  jumped 
up  and  clapped  his  hand  over  the  dealer's  mouth.  If 
the  Margravine  had  a  present  craze  for  Del  Sarto, — 
he  knew  about  how  her  fads  ran, —  and  could  just 
now  discern  the  merits  of  no  other  painter ;  and  if 
the  Prorege  had  an  equal  craze  for  Perugino  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  masters,  why  should  not  he 
himself,  taking  advantage — a  justifiable  advantage — 
of  so  much  narrowness  and  bigotry,  improve  the  op 
portunity  to  possess  himself  of  a  gem  whose  beauty 
neither  of  the  others  had  been  able  to  perceive?  The 
u Unknown  Madonna" — unknown  even  now  that  they 
were  face  to  face  with  her  —  was  not,  indeed,  a  Peru- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  39 

gino,  not  a  Del  Sarto,  but,  as  a  moment's  inspection 
satisfied  him,  an  undoubted  and  unrivaled  Sodoma. 
And  Sodoma  was  his  delight.     He  could  never  hope 
to  possess  a  Raphael,  but  Sodoma  was  a  sufficiently 
satisfying  substitute  for  even  the  great  Eoman ;  and 
here  was  the  chance  of  a  lifetime  presented  to  him. 
Only  one  question  troubled  him :  could  he  afford  this 
luxury  ?    He  shortly  decided  that  he  could ;  luxuries, 
after  all,  were  more  important  than  necessities;  and 
that  month  in  the  Engadine  he  must  postpone  until 
some  other  season.     Then  the  picture  —  to  weigh  an 
unavoidable  commercial  consideration  —  was  worth 
vastly  more  than  he  was  asked  to  pay,  and  would 
assuredly  appreciate  on  his  hands.     He  would  not 
buy  it  as  a  mercantile  transaction, —  he  had  an  indig 
nant  horror  of  speculating  in  a  great  painter's  brain 
and  skill, —  but  it  was  proper  enough  for  him  to  anti 
cipate  contingencies  and  prepare  for  future  emergen 
cies.    He  satisfied  himself  that  he  had  not  allowed 
enthusiasm  to  push  caution  aside,  and  he  purchased 
the  fugitive  Madonna  then  and  there  and  transferred 
it  at  once  to  his  appartamento.    The  Prorege  elabo 
rately  feigned  a  sympathetic  interest  in  the  Cava- 
liere's  acquisition,  and  concealed  with  a  fair  degree 
of  success  his  own  heart-broken  disappointment  j  but 
he  was  only  too  plainly  not  himself ;  and  after  mop 
ing  about  Pisa  for  a  week  or  two,  during  which  he 
suffered  much  from  the  Cavaliere's  complacency  and 
the  enthusiastic  interest  evoked  from  all  quarters  by 
the  "  Madonna  Incognita,"  he  quietly  got  his  things 
together,  put  his  household  in  marching  order,  and 
went  back  to  Arcopia. 


IV 


SIENA:  A  VAIN  ABASEMENT 


is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
the  Margravine  of  Schwahl- 
bach-Schreckenstein  was  the 
only  one  of  the  Prorege's 
competitors  who  paid  the 
tribute  of  a  visit  to  the  "  Un 
known  Madonna,"  as  it  rested 
after  its  long  journey  at  the 
house  in  the  Via  del  Qua- 
dro,  though  she,  indeed,  was 
the  only  one  of  them  whose 
arrival  antedated  his  own. 
For  the  Duke  of  Avon  and 
Severn  presented  himself 
there  also;  he  reached  the  ground  a  day  or  two 
later,  and  it  is  the  purpose  of  these  few  succeeding 
pages  to  explain  why  it  was  that  he  did  not  appear 
before. 

The  Prorege's  little  party,  in  the  course  of  its  jour- 
neyings,  reached  Siena  one  afternoon  at  about  four 
o'clock.  Our  prince's  companions  established  them 
selves  at  a  suitable  inn,  while  he  himself  fell  back 

40 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  41 

with  much  tranquillity  and  confidence  upon  a  certain 
noble  family  of  the  town  —  a  family  whose  name  has 
adorned  the  page  of  history  for  centuries,  and  whose 
state  was  still  such  as  to  enable  them  to  deal  justly 
with  any  strolling  viceroy.  This  state  was  manifest 
partly  in  a  grave  footman  who  was  wont  to  appear 
at  intervals  in  the  doorway  at  the  head  of  the  great 
staircase  in  knee-breeches  and  silk  stockings,  and 
who,  with  a  kind  of  patient  pity,  would  direct  appli 
cants  of  the  ordinary  type  for  lodging  and  sustenance 
to  the  pension  on  the  floor  just  below  —  an  institu 
tion  sufficiently  advertised  by  the  groups  of  local 
in  effectives  and  incapables  that  were  accustomed  to 
lounge  about  the  great  doorway  which  served  all  the 
occupants  of  the  palace  in  common.  And  it  was  this 
impressive  person  who,  some  time  during  the  early 
evening,  opened  the  door  on  the  upper  landing  for 
the  egress  of  his  master  and  his  master's  guest,  who, 
yielding  to  the  ordinary  human  craving  for  society 
and  entertainment,  were  on  the  point  of  sallying  forth 
to  the  caffe. 

As  the  Prorege  reached  the  first  landing  on  the 
way  down,  the  door  of  the  pension  opened,  and  it 
admitted  a  young  man  who  was  obviously  in  search 
of  society  and  entertainment  too.  The  hall  outside 
was  indifferently  lighted,  and  the  glare  from  within 
fell  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  illumine  his  face ;  but 
the  youth  was  tall  and  slender,  and  he  was  met  at  the 
door  itself  by  a  young  woman  who  greeted  him  witli 
much  cordiality  in  a  language  which  the  Prorege  did 
not  speak.  The  prince,  who  was  accustomed  to  over 
looking  the  informalities  of  certain  forestieri,  and 


42  THE  CHEVALIER  OP  PENSIERI-VANL 

who  was  not  without  some  sympathetic  interest  in 
the  concerns  of  youth,  smiled  benignly  and  accom 
panied  the  Marchese  down  and  out. 

Arrived  at  the  caffe,  the  Prorege  found  no  trace  of 
Pensieri  -Vani  and  Hors-Coneours,  whom  he  had  ex 
pected  to  meet  there ;  but  after  he  had  seated  him 
self,  a  casual  glance  over  his  shoulder  revealed 
to  him  the  presence  of  another  of  the  Pisan  Jiabi- 
hies,  and  the  last  of  them  that  he  would  have  looked 
to  see.  He  knew  in  an  instant  those  grizzled  tem 
ples,  that  haughty  nose,  and  those  hard,  cold  eyes, — 
features  that  had  more  than  once  caused  our  ami 
able  friend  a  mistaken  pang  of  envy, —  for  he  was 
almost  touching  elbows  with  the  Duke  of  Avon  and 
Severn. 

The  Duke  and  the  Prorege  during  their  residence 
on  the  Lung'  Arno,  while  the  one  was  awaiting  a 
reconciliation  with  his  people,  and  the  other  was 
endeavoring  to  revive  the  traditions  that  insular 
rank  and  wealth  and  genius  had  left  behind  them  in 
Pisa  half  a  century  before,  had  agreed  in  the  exercise 
of  a  civil  coldness  which  was  not  far  removed  from 
an  armed  neutrality.  Our  sympathetic  and  expan 
sive  prince  had  already  seen  the  role  of  civis  Britan- 
nicus  in  other  hands,  and  he  knew  well  enough  the 
danger  that  a  friendly  advance  stood  of  translation 
into  a  confession  of  inferiority ;  while,  owing  to  the 
peculiar  optical  arrangements  of  a  man  who  looked 
on  things  with  one  eye  as  a  noble  and  with  the  other 
as  a  Briton,  a  willingness  to  do  a  favor  would  infal 
libly  suffer  transfiguration  into  a  voluntary  act  of  self- 
abasement.  So  the  Prorege  bowed  with  a  great  and 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  43 

distant  gravity,  and  he  inwardly  congratulated  him 
self,  too,  on  the  absence  of  the  Cavaliere;  for  the 
Duke  had  been  a  younger  son  too  long  to  be  able 
now  to  treat  any  younger  man  with  much  considera 
tion,  least  of  all  a  young  man  unassociated  with  his 
own  hierarchy.  Almost  his  first  remarks  to  the  new 
comers  carried  a  contemptuous  reference  to  a  pair  of 
members  of  the  young  Sienese  aristocracy  who  had 
driven  past  the  caffe  several  times  rather  noisily  in 
an  English  dog-cart ;  the  elder  of  the  two  wore  a 
standing  collar  with  round  corners  —  like  a  groom, 
the  Duke  said.  The  Prorege  replied  carelessly  that 
he  did  not  remember  to  have  seen  any  grooms  in 
such  collars  lately.  Like  an  English  groom,  the  Duke 
rejoined  tartly.  The  Prorege  murmured  a  low  "Ah!" 
and  bowed  gravely  again ;  while  the  Marchese,  who 
thus  saw  his  offspring  devoted  to  damnation,  pre 
served  a  polite  and  discreet  silence. 

But  the  Duke's  conversational  bark  soon  passed  the 
rapids  of  ill-humor,  and  emerged,  more  or  less  inex 
plicably,  into  the  quiet  pool  of  communicative  chat- 
tiness.  The  Prorege,  willing  to  meet  him  half-way, 
made  one  or  two  civil  inquiries  about  his  plans  and 
movements,  and  so  learned,  without  any  great  effort, 
but  with  a  vast  and  sudden  surprise,  that  Avon  was 
designing  to  leave  in  the  morning  for  San  Gimignano. 
No  detailed  particulars  accompanied  this  announce 
ment,  but  for  the  startled  Prorege  none  were  needed. 
He  nervelessly  dropped  his  spoon  into  his  coffee,  and 
inwardly  wished  the  enveloping  smoke-cloud  of  the 
place  tenfold  denser  than  it  was ;  for,  as  far  as  he  knew, 
not  the  first  step  had  been  taken  in  his  own  arrange- 


44  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

ments  for  reaching  San  Gimignano.  But  he  collected 
himself  and  composed  his  features,  and  remarked,  with 
as  much  of  careless  indifference  as  he  could  command, 
that  it  were  a  pity  to  leave  so  attractive  a  town 
as  Siena  without  doing  it  complete  justice.  Avon 
rejoined  that  he  had  visited  the  town  before,  and 
more  than  once.  The  Prorege  inquired  if  he  had  yet 
visited  the  wood-carving  studio  behind  the  House  of 
St.  Catherine.  The  Duke  replied  that  he  took  but  lit 
tle  interest  in  modern  Italian  art- work.  The  Prorege 
asked  if  he  meant  to  miss  the  confirmation  at  the 
cathedral  in  the  morning.  The  Duke  responded  that 
he  had  already  attended  a  similar  ceremonial :  he  had 
seen  the  fifty  or  sixty  little  girls  in  blue  and  pink  and 
saffron,  and  the  fifty  or  sixty  little  boys  in  Sunday 
suits,  being  blessed  by  the  archbishop,  and  being  bound 
across  the  forehead  with  black  ribbons  by  the  priests; 
he  knew  already,  thanks,  what  a  carnival  in  the  juvenile 
ward  of  a  hospital  was  like. 

The  Prorege  glanced  sharply  at  him  with  a  stifled 
indignation ;  he  was  not  accustomed  to  having  his  sug 
gestions  met  in  any  such  manner  as  this.  But  he 
thrust  down  his  pique  with  a  strong  hand.  The  one 
important  thing  was  that  Avon  should  spend  the  fol 
lowing  forenoon  in  Siena ;  a  dignity  inviolate  was 
now  coming  to  be  a  secondary  consideration. 

There  was  to  be  a  game  of  pallone  at  the  Fortezza 
that  afternoon,  the  Prorege  went  on  perseveringly ; 
he  should  be  most  happy  to  have  the  Duke  go  with 
him  to  see  it.  This  was  an  invitation;  the  Prorege 
had  distinctly  fallen  a  peg.  But  the  Duke  had  appar 
ently  no  great  regard  for  Italian  athletics;  the  game, 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  45 

as  he  understood  it,  involved  neither  bats  nor  wickets, 
and  he  should  find  it  quite  impracticable,  he  was  afraid, 
to  accept.  The  Prorege,  under  cover  of  the  marble 
edge  of  the  table,  snapped  his  finger-nails  for  pure 
nervousness,  and  made  another  proposition.  The 
Marchese  was  to  drive  him  in  the  morning  to  one  of 
his  country-houses  a  few  miles  outside  the  city,  and 
it  would  be  pleasant  to  them  to  have  his  Grace's  com 
pany  ;  the  view  was  famous.  This  was  a  second  invita 
tion — one  extended  over  the  very  head  of  his  host,  too; 
the  Prorege  had  slipped  a  peg  lower  yet.  But  the 
Duke  intimated  that  he  was  already  pretty  familiar 
with  the  terra  di  Siena,  and  it  was  quite  impossible, 
really,  for  him  to  take  the  necessary  time.  The  Pro 
rege  had  now  about  reached  the  end  of  his  string,  and 
with  a  consciousness  of  an  utter  prostration  of  spirit 
he  asked  the  Duke  out  and  out  a  personal  favor. 

If  it  is  necessary  to  offer  here  a  word  of  apology 
for  the  Viceroy  of  Arcopia,  let  it  be  offered,  since  the 
course  of  this  narrative  will  present  few  occasions  of 
a  similar  kind ;  but  he  was  immensely  in  earnest  over 
his  Perugino,  and  his  request  of  Avon  may  not  seem 
as  humiliating  to  us  as  he  himself  felt  it  to  be.  He 
was  meaning,  he  said,  to  visit  the  missals  in  the  library 
of  the  cathedral  in  the  morning,  and  he  should  be 
glad  to  do  so  under  the  conduct  of  so  great  a  virtuoso 
as  the  Duke  was  known  to  be. 

The  Duke  could  ignore  suggestions  and  decline  in 
vitations,  but  the  asking  of  such  a  favor  as  this  was 
a  different  matter.  Then  Avon,  as  an  actual  fact, 
knew  more  about  missals  than  any  other  man  in  Tus 
cany,  and  he  was  not  displeased  to  have  his  eminence 


46  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

recognized,  especially  by  another  who  was  himself  a 
connoisseur.  Besides,  what  was  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  immediately  after  breakfast?  He  withdrew, 
promising  compliance,  and  the  Prorege,  emerging 
from  the  stifling  clouds  of  doubt,  took  a  quick  draught 
of  the  refreshing  air  of  comparative  certainty. 

It  was  into  this  atmosphere  that  the  Cavaliere  and 
his  friend  presently  entered,  and  they  contributed 
their  own  quota  of  ozone  by  advising  their  appre 
hensive  patron  that  the  arrangements  for  their  depart 
ure  to  San  Gimignano  were  completed,  and  that  they 
would  leave  Siena  in  the  morning  after  a  breakfast  as 
early  and  hurried  as  even  his  impatient  haste  could 
exact.  Then  the  Cavaliere  put  the  Prorege  into  a 
flutter  again  by  telling  him  that  still  another  of  his 
possible  competitors  was  in  Siena.  The  Prorege  re 
sponded  instantly  to  this  slight  touch ;  but  the  Cava 
liere  smiled  quizzically  and  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  declared  that  this  new  candidate  was  not  likely 
to  give  them  any  trouble:  he  had  other  matters  to 
look  after  —  matters  much  more  interesting  and  im 
portant  —  to  him. 

The  Prorege  accepted  this  assurance  without  call 
ing  for  corroborative  detail,  and  presently  returned 
home  with  the  Marchese.  On  the  way  back  he  asked 
his  host  (for  the  visit  to  the  Libreria  was  the  merest 
stop-gap)  if  he  knew  of  any  persons  in  the  town  who 
had  articles  of  virtu  with  which  they  might  be  in 
duced  to  part;  anybody, —  it  mattered  not  who  or 
what, —  friend,  relative,  or  acquaintance,  high  or  low, 
gentle  or  simple,  that  possessed  tapestries  with  which 
they  could  dispense,  or  armor  that  they  would  offer 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  47 

temporarily  at  a  liberal  figure  to  an  immediate  pur 
chaser,  or  cranes  and  andirons  which  might  be  pro 
cured  advantageously  if  applied  for  at  once,  or  plaques 
and  vases  that  might  swell  the  collection  of  a  great 
noble,  provided  no  time  were  lost  in  making  a  suitable 
proposal.  Were  there  any  palaces  where  carved 
ceilings  could  be  bargained  for?  Were  there  any 
convents  where  superfluous  altar-cloths  awaited  pur 
chasers  — orthodox  or  heterodox  ?  Were  there  no  pic 
ture-galleries  whose  gentle  but  impoverished  owners 
were  contemplating  dispersal  ?  Were  there  no  — 

The   Prorege  was  pausing  under  the  projecting 
bracket  of  a  dim  street-lamp,  his  fingers  interlocked 
in  an  imploring  gesture,  and  the  light  flickering  down 
upon  his  troubled  face.     His  companion  had  halted, 
too,  and  was  regarding  the  ravenous  zeal  of  the  vice 
roy  with  a  frank  amazement;  he  seemed  to  feel  him 
self  standing  face  to  face  with  the  spirit  of  Spoliation 
incarnate,  that  had  descended  to  rob  his  native  town 
of  even  such  poor  relics  as  time  and  misfortune  had 
left  her.     But  he  was  able,  upon  understanding  the 
situation,  to  offer  one  or  two  suggestions  and  to  give  a 
bit  of  information  or  so  that  had  some  bearing  on  the 
matter  in  hand ;  and  when  the  Prorege  blew  out  his 
candle  that  night,  he  did  so  with  the  complacent  air  of 
a  man  who,  in  spite  of  the  dark,  saw  two  moves  ahead. 
No  spot  in  all  Italy  is  more  consciously  devoted  to 
art  than  is  the  library  of  the  Cathedral  of  Siena,— 
the  Sala  Piccolominea, —  where  architecture,  paint 
ing,  wood-carving,  and  missal-illuminating  combine 
to  produce  a  body  and  a  flavor  and  a  bouquet  not 
often  to  be  enjoyed  in  equal  degree  elsewhere ;  and 


48  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

few  apartments,  perhaps,  have  been  more  uncon 
scionably  devoted  to  artifice  than  the  same  stately 
saloon,  thanks  to  the  web  which  the  ingenious  Pro- 
rege  now  began  to  spin  there  for  his  unsuspecting 
cicerone.  Their  inspection  of  the  missals  began  with 
a  high  and  formal  gravity ;  the  priest  in  attendance 
was  all  compliance,  and  the  Duke  handled  each  of 
the  bulky  volumes  with  the  affectionate  thoroughness 
that  the  Prorege  had  anticipated.  He  entered  into  a 
minute  examination  of  the  delicate  miniatures  that 
adorned  each  prodigious  initial,  comparing  the  work 
of  Fra  This  in  one  book  with  the  work  of  Fra  That  in 
another  j  and  he  showed  that  he  possessed  a  more 
than  merely  artistic  apprehension  of  the  bands  of 
squares  and  diamonds,  red  and  black,  that  straggled 
across  every  page,  for  he  occasionally  stayed  the  turn 
ing  of  a  leaf  for  the  sake  of  a  bit  of  chanting,  which 
he  performed  gravely  to  the  beating  of  his  lead-pen 
cil.  His  severe,  smooth-shaven  face,  and  his  some 
what  rough  and  raucous  voice,  helped  almost  to 
transfer  him  from  the  ranks  of  the  laity  to  those  of 
the  religiosi;  and  the  Prorege,  whose  insinuation  of 
paintings  and  carvings  and  terra-cottas  was  just  be 
ginning,  could  not  restrain  a  smile  as  the  conscious 
ness  of  his  own  Mephistophelian  attitude  grew  upon 
him;  a  smile  whose  self-complacent  relish  was  in 
exact  ratio  —  as  would  have  been  the  case  with  any  of 
the  rest  of  us  —  to  his  own  innate  goodness. 

Half  an  hour  now  had  passed  in  these  diversions, 
and  Pensieri-Vani  was  doubtless  well  beyond  the  city 
walls.  The  Prorege,  standing  close  behind  the  Duke's 
left  shoulder,  had  begun  a  mysterious  whispering  that 


THE  CHEVALIER  OP  PENSIERI-VANI.  49 

involved  streets  and  numbers,  and  certain  walls  and 
doorways,  and  names  and  personalities,  and  distant 
hints  of  misfortune  and  impoverishment  and  unpre 
cedented  opportunities;  and  presently  the  Duke  closed 
one  of  the  big  volumes  by  the  absent-minded  falling 
of  a  cover,  and  he  did  not  open  another  one.  In  due 
time  he  had  an  eager  look  of  interest  in  his  face,  a 
question  or  two  on  his  tongue,  and  a  note-book  and 
pencil  in  his  hand,  and  the  Prorege  soon  concluded 
that  his  rival  was  likely  to  spend  the  remainder  of 
the  day  in  Siena  —  as  indeed  he  did. 

It  seemed  to  the  Prorege  that  by  this  little  stroke 
of  policy  he  had  earned  the  right  to  some  trifling 
diversion  or  other,  and  after  a  light  lunch  he  found 
himself  tripping  it  through  the  shrubs  and  flower 
beds  of  the  Lizza  toward  the  pallone  ground  which 
lay  beneath  the  fortifications  of  the  Fortezza.  He 
selected  a  lofty  perch  in  the  angle  of  a  convenient 
bastion, —  a  position  which  commanded  at  once  a 
good  view  of  the  grounds  below  him  and  of  the  old 
town  itself  sprawled  out  carelessly  beneath  and  about 
him.  On  one  of  the  huddled  hills  opposite  rose 
the  cathedral,  with  its  dome  and  its  bell-tower  and 
its  vast  skeletonic  nave ;  and  on  others  appeared  the 
facades  of  churches  and  the  towers  of  convents,  like 
knots  in  a  loosely  tangled  skein.  In  the  midst  of  all 
this  the  great  tower  of  the  Municipio  shot  up  and 
blossomed  forth,  and  encompassing  all  was  a  long, 
low  heaving  of  brown  and  half-denuded  hills,  set  here 
and  there  with  time-worn  monasteries  and  with  villas 
reached  through  long  avenues  of  cypresses. 

Some  twenty  or  thirty  paces  from  the  Prorege,  half 


50  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

a  hundred  or  more  spectators  had  established  them 
selves  on  the  big  stone  blocks  of  the  parapet,  and  were 
intent  on  the  game  that  was  proceeding  beneath  them. 
There  were  several  ladies  dressed  with  the  light  gaiety 
appropriate  to  the  season  and  the  occasion,  and  there 
was,  too,  the  indispensable  number  of  frisky  and  ven 
turesome  little  boys.  These  frolicked  along  the  para 
pet,  and  while  constantly  on  the  point  of  falling 
their  fifty  feet,  never  quite  did  so;  an  unrepeated 
reality  is  very  insipid,  of  course,  as  compared  with  a 
constantly  reiterated  apprehension.  Below,  in  the 
court,  the  half-dozen  players  appeared  in  white  linen 
blouses  with  frills  all  stiffly  starched  and  ruffled  after 
the  fashion  of  gentlemen  amateurs  on  a  notable  oc 
casion,  and  they  wielded  manfully  the  great  spiked 
wooden  muffs,  which  are  carried  on  the  right  fist  and 
form  the  one  weapon  of  offense  and  defense.  One  of 
them,  catching  sight  of  the  Prorege,  waved  him  a 
salutation  half  familiar,  half  deferential,  and  the  Pro 
rege,  after  a  moment's  blinking  in  the  face  of  the  sun, 
recognized  in  him  a  Pisan  acquaintance  whose  play 
he  had  once  applauded  outside  the  Lucchese  gate. 
Most  of  these  young  men  were  as  short  and  dark  as 
the  traditions  of  their  race  exact,  but  one  of  them  was 
a  tall  and  slender  blond  whose  strained  eyes  and 
tousled  hair  betrayed  the  anxiety  of  the  novice  be 
fore  the  gaze  of  some  single  and  especial  spectator, 
and  whose  erratic  and  extravagant  play  indicated 
more  enthusiasm  than  skill.  The  single  and  especial 
spectator  appeared  to  be  a  young  lady  of  twenty  or 
twenty-one,  who  wore  a  plain  but  handsome  tailor- 
made  suit,  and  whose  cool  gray  eyes  cast  a  quiet 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  51 

and  self-possessed  look  upon  the  struggle  going  on 
below. 

When  her  champion  made  a  successful  stroke,  she 
waved  her  handkerchief  or  her  parasol;  when  he 
made  an  unsuccessful  one,  she  looked  at  the  tower  of 
the  cathedral  or  at  the  squad  of  recruits  in  gray  linen 
who  were  drilling  on  the  parade-ground  behind  her. 
Once,  when  by  a  stroke  of  exceptional  vigor  and  ad 
dress  he  sent  the  big  ball  bounding  up  against  the 
face  of  the  wall  to  within  a  foot  of  her  own  standpoint, 
she  threw  out  her  hands  and  started  back  with  a  kind 
of  scream.  The  Prorege  looked  at  her,  for  the  scream 
was  no  ordinary  scream ;  though  impromptu,  it  was  a 
finished  vocal  effort ;  it  was  a  piece  of  free,  fine,  full 
tone-production.  It  was  a  scream  that  challenged  a 
responsive  chord  from  a  big  concourse  of  violins  and 
clarinets  and  bassoons ;  and  her  gesture  seemed  to  in 
vite  the  other  ladies  to  respond  — as  sopranos,  mezzo- 
sopranos,  and  contraltos  —  with  a  "  Gran  Dio ! "  or  an 
"Ah,  fuggite!"  of  proper  fire  and  shrillness.  The 
Prorege  continued  his  curious  gaze — where,  where 
had  he  seen  her  before  f  But  the  young  lady  seemed 
a  bit  ashamed  of  the  attention  she  had  attracted;  she 
shifted  her  parasol  to  hide  herself,  and  presently  she 
strolled  away. 

In  the  course  of  the  afternoon  the  Prorege  inti 
mated  to  his  hostess  that  she  could  please  him  by 
asking  the  Duke  of  Avon  and  Severn  to  dine  there 
that  evening.  The  Duke  presented  himself  dressed 
simply  in  the  neglige  of  the  tourist,  yet  full-armored 
in  his  amalgam  of  insularity  and  cosmopolitism.  But 
he  found  himself  outmatched  by  the  monumental  ig- 


52  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

Dorance  and  self-complacency  of  the  March esa,  who, 
a  Sienese  of  the  Sienese,  had  never  been  twenty  miles 
from  home  in  her  life,  just  as  he  found  himself  out- 
dressed  by  the  Prorege,  who  made  the  most  careful 
toilet  possible  under  the  circumstances.  On  one  point 
he  was  most  particular :  he  wore  a  high-standing  col 
lar  with  rounded  corners.  Avon  did  not  fail  to  notice 
this ;  he  accepted  the  collar  as  a  danger-signal,  and  he 
conducted  himself  with  the  necessary  circumspection. 
Besides,  his  successful  afternoon  had  put  him  in  high 
good  humor,  and  the  Prorege  listened  with  a  grave 
smile  to  the  account  of  his  triumphal  foray  through 
the  town.  As  regards  the  collar,  however,  there  is 
room  for  other  interpretations.  The  acute  reader  may 
see  in  it  a  token  of  anticipated  victory.  The  sympa 
thetic  reader,  conscious  of  the  Prorege's  ultimate  fail 
ure,  will  rejoice  that  he  did  not  put  forth  a  token 
more  obtrusive. 

In  the  evening  the  Prorege  and  his  friends  walked 
forth  in  the  Lizza.  There  was  a  scent  of  the  blossom 
ing  springtime  in  the  air,  and  a  flickering  of  fireflies 
through  the  shrubbery.  Rows  of  lights  glimmered  on 
the  slant  of  distant  hillsides,  and  church-towers  soared 
up  into  the  deep  blueness  punctured  by  the  stars.  A 
throng  of  idlers  circled  sedately  over  the  gravel  walks 
of  the  park,  and  a  band,  sent  from  the  neighboring 
Fortezza,  discreetly  breathed  at  intervals  old,  old  airs 
from  the  old,  old  operas.  In  one  of  the  walks  on  the 
side  nearest  the  pallone  ground  a  couple  were  stroll 
ing  slowly  side  by  side,  and  the  Prorege,  flicking  the 
ashes  from  the  end  of  his  cigar,  paused  to  listen  to 
the  duet  that  they  were  performing  sotto  voce.  A 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  53 

smooth  soprano  voice  was  softly  repeating  a  phrase 
which  the  band  had  lately  given  out,  and  a  rather 
rugged  baritone  appeared  to  be  crudely  casting  about 
for  the  proper  harmonies  to  accompany  it.  The  so 
prano  made  no  protest  over  his  indifferent  success; 
the  intention  was  obviously  far  removed  from  any 
thing  like  general  esthetics. 

The  Prorege  looked  athwart  the  darkling  pallone 
ground,  and  smiled  a  smile  of  plenary  indulgence. 
To-night,  far  more  easily  than  could  have  been  the 
case  on  the  night  before,  would  he  admit  that  Per 
sonal  Propinquity  and  the  Present  might  be  entitled 
to  a  nearly  equal  consideration  with  Perugino  and 
the  Past.  He  little  realized  that  his  indebtedness  to 
the  pallone  ground  was  fully  as  great  as  his  indebt 
edness  to  the  cathedral  library,  nor  was  his  hour  of 
pleasure  spoiled  by  any  apprehension  that,  despite 
the  manoeuvers  in  either  quarter,  his  intriguing  and 
his  self-abasement  were  to  prove  equally  in  vain. 


ORVIETO:   HOW  THE  CAVALIERE  WON  HIS  TITLE 


have  indicated  with 
any  degree  of  suc 
cess  how  Pensieri- 
Vani  moved  about 
hither  and  thither 
with  a  very  consider 
able  degree  of  free 
dom  and  in  the  exer 
cise  of  a  will  and 
fancy  quite  unham 
pered, —  except  by 
certain  ignoble  pe 
cuniary  considera 
tions  which  I  quite 
prefer  to  ignore, —  that  his  domestic  ties  were  of  the 
slightest.  In  fact,  it  would  be  quite  the  truth  to  say 
that  he  had  no  domestic  ties  whatever ;  and  now,  ap 
proaching  an  age  when  a  man  comes  to  be  distinctively 
termed  a  bachelor,  the  thought  of  matrimony  was  as 
far  as  ever  from  his  mind.  The  image  of  himself  as  the 
head  of  a  family  filled  him  with  a  comic  dismay.  He 
valued  his  freedom  above  all  things,  and  felt  that  he 

54 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI  -VANI.  55 

could  never  assume  the  conjugal  yoke  without  pres 
ently  experiencing  an  irresistible  disposition  to  cast  it 
off.  He  sometimes  thought  he  saw  in  the  dim  distance 
the  coming  of  the  day  when  the"  long-dominant  and 
long  taken-for-granted  idea  of  Matrimony  should  go 
to  meet,  in  the  realm  of  the  dispensable  and  the  dis 
missed,  the  other  idea,  once  equally  dominant  and 
equally  taken  for  granted,  of  Monarchy.  A  bachelor 
himself,  he  willingly  chose  his  associates  from  his 
kind;  Hors-Concours,  his  chief  intimate,  shared  his 
views  on  marriage,  and  enjoyed  like  him  the  life  of 
pleasant  and  self-indulgent  irresponsibility  which  may 
be  led,  up  to  a  certain  age,  without  provoking  too 
severe  a  condemnation  from  the  more  serious  and 
sober-minded  section  of  society. 

And  as  the  Cavaliere  had  no  family,  so  he  had  no 
home.  He  would  have  found  it  as  difficult  to  give 
his  allegiance  to  one  town  for  aye  as  to  give  his  hand 
to  one  woman  for  the  same  indefinite  period.  Though 
I  have  represented  him  as  the  occupant  of  an  apart 
ment  in  Pisa,  he  by  no  means  looked  upon  that  too 
placid  town  as  suitable  for  a  permanent  residence  j 
a  month  or  so  there,  now  and  then,  might  be  agree 
able  enough,  but  year  in  and  year  out,  in  swculd 
scBCidorum,  was  quite  a  different  affair.  If  the  Cava 
liere  could  be  identified  with  any  particular  town, 
that  town  might  be  Florence,  where  he  held  a  little 
appartamento  on  long  time,  and  where  most  of  the 
things  collected  from  here  and  there  during  his  long, 
irregular  wanderings  were  kept  in  custody.  At  one 
time,  when  his  journeyings  marked  out  a  larger  orbit 
than  now,  he  had  found  it  convenient  to  make  his 


56  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

headquarters  at  Geneva,  which  he  found  to  be  not  far 
from  the  geographical  center  of  European  travel ;  but 
for  a  few  years  past  he  had  confined  himself  almost 
altogether  to  Italy,  and  the  Florentines  thus  gained 
what  the  Genevese  had  lost. 

It  was  usually  well  along  in  November  when  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  threw  open  the  window-blinds  of  his  little 
salotto  and  sent  out  a  general  glance  of  complacent 
recognition  over  the  river  and  the  hills  beyond  j  then, 
having  given  San  Miniato  and  Bello  Sguardo  their 
due,  he  settled  down  to  his  annual  inspection  of  his 
belongings  and  effects.  These  were  numerous  enough, 
in  all  conscience,  but  not,  to  the  coldly  critical  eye  of 
the  connoisseur,  of  any  extreme  value.  Their  expo 
sition  would  certainly  have  produced  no  stir  at  the 
Hotel  Drouot,  or  its  Florentine  equivalent ;  whatever 
value  they  possessed  was  based  largely  on  personal 
considerations,  and  was  perceptible  chiefly  to  the 
owner  himself.  I  shall  not  betray  his  hospitality  by 
giving  any  detailed  account  of  them  j  he  did  not  buy 
Sodom  as  every  day,  and  if  I  were  to  tell  you  of  his 
shells  from  Amalfi,  and  his  anemones  from  the  Villa 
Doria,  and  his  sketches  from  the  Lagoons,  and  his  bits 
of  mosaic  from  Ravenna,  you  might  only  smile.  In 
deed,  one  noble  personage,  who  had  been  admitted 
with  more  open-mindedness  than  the  Cavaliere  usually 
found  it  expedient  to  practise,  declared  that  the  fellow 
was  as  poor  as  a  church  mouse,  and  that  the  sum  of  his 
earthly  belongings  might  easily  be  comprised  in  his 
title ;  he  added  a  little  jest  as  to  the  value  of  a  title 
in  Italy.  Now  the  title  really  was  the  most  prized 
of  Peusieri-Vani's  belongings,  and  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  acquired  justified,  I  think,  the 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VAN!  57 

possessor  of  it  in  his  pride.  But  before  I  go  on  to  tell 
you  how  and  why  it  was  conferred,  let  me  correct  any 
mistaken  impression  I  may  have  conveyed  concerning 
the  worldly  fortune  of  the  most  worthy  gentleman  in 
whose  personality  and  peregrinations  I  have  endea 
vored  to  awaken  an  interest.  It  is  true  that  the  little 
inventory  of  his  possessions  was  quite  guiltless  of 
triptych s  and  tapestries,  that  he  was  without  the 
slightest  representative  of  Cellini's  cunning  skill,  and 
that  he  longed  in  vain  for  a  single  piece  of  good,  un 
doubted  Capo  di  Monte.  But  we  must  count  among 
his  assets  an  unbounded  susceptibility  to  those  ad 
dresses  and  advances  of  Nature  which  should  be  our 
common  heritage,  however  much  most  of  us  may 
slight  and  scorn  her  legacy,  and  an  almost  unbounded 
fund  of  artistic  and  historical  knowledge  which  en 
abled  Mm  to  see  clearly  where  others  saw  through  a 
glass  darkly,  or  saw  not  at  all,  or  quite  failed,  indeed, 
to  realize  that  there  was  anything  whatever  to  see. 
The  ability  to  perceive,  to  understand  what  one  per 
ceives,  to  extract  the  full  measure  of  profit  and  en 
joyment  by  so  understanding, —  this  must  be  in  great 
part  the  wealth  of  a  pilgrim  in  Italy.  The  Italian 
civilization  addresses  itself  primarily  to  the  eye,  but 
after,  with  immense  reaches  of  depth  and  breadth, 
to  the  intellect.  If  you  prefer  a  civilization  that  shall 
address  exclusively  the  "  moral  sense,"  I  must  refer 
you  to  New  England,  with  its  clapboard  school-houses 
and  its  Cotton  Mathers. 

But  how  did  the  Cavaliere  become  a  cavaliere?  — 
that  is  the  question.  I  will  tell  you  without  any  fur 
ther  delay. 

In  the  days  when  he  was  the  ordinary  "  signer "  of 


58  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

the  public's  general  address,  but  the  pleasant  "  signo- 
rin7"  of  doting  sagrestani  and  easy-going  old  ap 
ple-women,  he  chanced  to  pass  a  fortnight  at  Orvieto 
with  a  certain  venerable  canonico  there, whose  favorite 
he  was.  You  readily  recall  the  rock  of  Orvieto,  with 
its  sheer  fall  of  six  or  eight  hundred  feet  to  the  stony 
bed  of  the  Paglia,  and  must  assuredly  know  the  old 
town,  so  solidly  reared  in  square- wrought  blocks  of 
rich,  dark-brown  tufa,  that  perches  upon  the  top  of 
it.  And  if  you  have  forgotten  all  else,  your  memory 
still  holds  some  recollection  of  the  great  cathedral 
there,  with  its  sumptuous  front  so  galleried,  so 
gabled,  so  grandly  laden  down  with  its  superb  array 
of  sculptures  and  bronzes  and  vast  sheeted  spread 
of  richly  glittering  mosaics.  Well,  the  canonico  be 
ing  attached  to  the  cathedral  and  the  signorino  to 
the  canonico,  the  exact  relation  of  the  young  man 
to  the  ancient  edifice  might  easily  be  made  a  matter 
of  mathematical  exposition.  But  I  may  escape  the 
frigidity  of  such  a  method  by  saying  that  Pensieri- 
Vani's  attitude  toward  the  church  was,  from  the 
first,  one  of  keen  delight  tempered  by  a  reverent 
awe,  and  ended  in  becoming  one  of  almost  personal 
affection.  As  he  resorted  to  it  day  after  day,  each 
time  possessing  its  cool,  dim,  spacious  aisles  almost 
to  himself,  he  felt  impelled  by  a  sense  of  absolute 
justice  to  pay  his  fullest  tribute  to  a  monument 
which  received  so  little  and  yet  deserved  so  much. 
And  as  few  strangers  presented  themselves  to  be  in 
formed  of  its  just  dues,  he  resolved  that  such  of  the 
natives  as  he  could  reach  should  no  longer  go  uniii- 
structed.  The  canonico,  toward  whom  he  directed  his 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  59 

first  efforts,  and  whom  he  induced,  after  considerable 
pleading,  to  accompany  him  in  a  little  excursion  along 
the  narrow  gallery  that  crosses  the  facade,  did  not 
make  the  ideal  convert.  His  feeling  toward  the 
church  came  rather  from  a  forty  years7  residence 
under  its  shadows  than  from  any  perception  of  its 
artistic  excellencies;  and  his  dim  old  eyes,  as  they 
caressed  its  front,  expressed  only  a  pleasure  in  the 
general  permanence  of  its  presence.  Nor  was  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  much  more  successful  with  the  archbishop. 
This  venerable  prelate  accepted  his  church  just  as  if 
it  were  a  great  fact  of  nature,  as  much  and  as  last 
ingly  a  part  of  the  general  scheme  of  things  as  the 
vast  rock  on  which  it  stood  —  another  rock,  in  fact, 
as  high,  as  strong,  as  enduring,  as  mighty,  as  glo 
rious.  It  was  not  until  Pensieri-Vani  encountered, 
one  morning,  on  the  steps  of  the  church  itself,  a  young 
Savoyard  who  was  passing  a  few  days  at  the  Aquila, 
and  with  whom  he  was  not  slow  in  striking  up  an 
intimacy,  that  he  found  any  one  with  whose  views 
and  feelings  on  this  point  his  own  seemed  in  exact 
accord.  With  this  new  acquaintance  —  the  Seigneur 
des  Hauts  Rochers  de  Hors-Concours  —  he  paid  long 
and  repeated  visits  to  the  great  monument  of  the 
town.  Then,  too,  they  familiarized  themselves  with 
the  town  itself  and  with  the  valley  plain  at  its  foot. 
Not  the  least  of  their  pleasures  here  was  extended 
to  them  by  that  roadway  which,  rendered  irregular 
by  numerous  small  piazze  and  other  open  spaces, 
skirts  the  edge  of  the  rock  and  almost  circumscribes 
the  town  —  an  edge  hung  with  any  number  of  dilapi 
dated  old  dwellings  and  half  a  dozen  or  more  de- 


60  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

crepit  and  superannuated  churches.  If  the  connecting 
link  between  the  animal  and  the  vegetable  kingdoms 
be  found  in  the  sponge,  which  is  variously  considered 
a  creature  and  a  plant,  then,  in  like  manner,  the  con 
necting  link  between  the  vegetable  and  the  mineral 
kingdoms  might  be  found  in  the  town  of  Orvieto, 
which,  though  reared  in  sturdy  and  indubitable  stone, 
yet  wears  such  an  aspect  of  usefulness  outlived,  and 
offers  such  evidence  of  a  long,  slow  lapse  through  the 
various  stages  of  moldering  decay,  that  one  in 
voluntarily  recalls  the  appearance  of  a  corn-field  in 
November,  or  seems  to  scent  the  rich  and  rotted 
earth  in  the  depths  of  some  sun-shunned  wood. 
What  cypress  grove  could  be  more  richly  somber 
than  the  warm,  brown  walls  of  Orvieto's  centuried 
habitations  ?  What  oak  copse  more  sturdy  and  stable 
than  the  positive  and  ponderous  round  arches,  big 
and  little,  that  span  almost  every  door  and  window 
throughout  the  town  ?  What  forest  glade  more  cool, 
and  quiet,  and  pensive,  and  deserted,  more  surely 
marked  for  a  long  career  of  slow,  unheeded  disinte 
gration,  than  some  of  those  dank  and  dusky  little 
convent-churches  whose  moldering  walls  give  back 
a  hollow  echo  to  the  footfall  of  the  passing  stranger? 
For  the  connoisseur  of  the  abandoned,  the  desolate, 
the  Novemberesque,  the  gone-to-seed  Orvieto  has  an 
interest  quite  its  own. 

In  one  of  the  old  sanctuaries  that  totter  on  the  edge 
of  the  cliff — the  dampest  and  duskiest  one,  the  most 
seemingly  God-forsaken  of  them  all— our  sojourners 
chanced  one  day  upon  a  real  artistic  treasure.  On  a 
rude  old  wall — a  wall  seamed,  and  scarred,  and  damp- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  61 

soaked — they  found  clinging,  in  a  state  of  lamentable 
and  disheartening  neglect  and  decay,  a  few  shreds  and 
patches  of  ancient  frescos.   Most  of  these  could  hardly 
have  been  attractive  at  any  time,  and  at  this  late  day 
not  many  of  them  were  even  intelligible.    But  among 
them,  and  yet  apart,  looking  out  from  a  cloudy  screen 
of  characterless  modern  plaster  as  the  moon  looks 
through  a  break  in  the  clouded  heavens,  was  the  face 
of  a  Madonna.    It  was  a  Madonna  of  the  tre-cento, 
Tuscan  utterly,  and  as  Giottesque  as  the  sweet  asceti 
cism  of  her  thin  and  sharply  drawn  features  could 
make  her — a  saint  of  sugar  and  vinegar.    Her  nar 
row  eyes  fastened  upon  them  a  look  of  dulcet  severity, 
and  her  nimbused  head  drooped  slightly,  half  in  hu 
mility  and  half  in  pride.     Was  she  gracious  or  was 
she  unbending  !    Was  she  human  or  was  she  divine  ? 
They  could  not  tell ;  but  they  felt  that  she  was  pure. 
And  then  they  remembered,  though  it  seems  almost 
an  indignity  to  pen  the  words,  that,  after  all,  this 
vision,  reduced  to  its  simplest  and  lowest  elements, 
was  but  a  trace  or  two  of  color  upon  a  sheet  of  crum 
bling  plaster.    How  could  so  little  mean  so  much? 
How  could  this  slight  relic,  which,  in  the  course  of 
the  centuries,  must  have  received  the  homage,  and  at 
such  close  quarters,  too,  of  so  many  pilgrims  (for 
surely  the  contemplation  of  this  aid  to  prayer  could 
not  have  been  confined  altogether  to  the  sacristan), 
have  maintained  so  long  its  sanctity  intact?    It  was 
merely  a  bit  of  plaster  a  few  inches  square,  and  al 
ready  half  loosened  from  its  hold;  the  building  was 
dark  and  deserted ;  the  sacristan  was  old,  and  feeble, 
and  half  blind — perhaps  even  venal.    A  few  cuts  with 


62  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANI. 

a  penknife  would  detach  the  picture  altogether;  a 
cunningly  folded  coat  or  mantle  would  serve  to  trans 
fer  it,  undetected,  from  the  edifice  5  the  train  for  Flor 
ence  would  be  passing  in  an  hour — 

But  all  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  Pensieri -Vani's 
title.  He  waited  for  a  Madonna  until  he  could  obtain 
one  without  ignoring  the  Decalogue,  and  he  earned 
his  honorary  prefix  on  the  occasion  of  his  officiating 
at  the  organ  for  high  mass  in  the  Orvieto  cathedral. 
A  great  function  was  approaching,  and  the  arch 
bishop,  who  half  divined  that  certain  eminent  person 
ages  from  Rome  would  attend,  desired  to  have  the 
celebration  as  elaborate  and  impressive  as  possible. 
At  this  particularly  important  juncture  his  chief  mu 
sician  suddenly  failed  him,  and  there  was  no  other 
person  attached  to  the  cathedral  whom  he  could  ven 
ture  to  trust  on  so  momentous  an  occasion.  Con 
sidering  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  case,  the 
archbishop  allowed  himself  to  break  through  the  time- 
honored  ordinance  which  barred  the  laity  from  any 
prominent  part  in  so  great  a  function,  and  signified 
to  the  canonico,  whose  belief  in  Pensieri  -Vani's  powers 
was  boundless,  and  whose  expression  of  this  belief  was 
quite  unrestrained,  that  if  their  secular  brother  desired 
to  officiate  upon  the  occasion,  the  archiepiscopal  eye 
would  look  as  indulgently  as  possible  upon  the  inno 
vation.  But,  that  proper  decorum  might  be  preserved, 
the  young  man  should  assume  the  vestments  befitting 
the  office.  Pensieri  -Vani  accepted  the  oif er,  vestments 
and  all,  took  his  place  at  the  proper  time,  and  almost 
played  the  archbishop  off  his  very  throne. 

I  am  only  too  conscious  that  I  may  have  failed  to 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  63 

prepare  yon  for  that  particular  trend  of  the  Cava- 
liere's  talent  which  I  now  desire  you  to  follow ;  but 
if  time  and  place  and  circumstance  may  form  one's 
powers  and  bring  them  into  play,  the  same  consider 
ations  must  readily  be  allowed  the  power  to  do  so 
slight  a  thing  as  merely  to  qualify  them.  If  you 
are  seated  at  a  humble  little  piano  in  a  half-lighted 
salotto,  with  a  few  friends  about  you,  your  harmonies 
ripple  lightly  and  gracefully  along,  with  here  and 
there  just  a  touch  of  the  pensive  or  the  capricious ; 
but  when  you  find  yourself  in  place  under  a  vast 
and  powerful  organ  in  the  populous  and  resounding 
cavern  of  a  great  cathedral,  you  summon  all  the  pomp 
and  strength  and  splendor  of  your  art  to  your  assist 
ance.  What  is  diviner  than  an  organ  ?  Where,  more 
than  on  an  organ-bench,  as  you  sit  improvising  the 
concords  commensurate  with  the  splendors  of  a  great 
Catholic  function,  does  the  whole  being  —  physical, 
mental,  and  moral — come  into  free  and  perfect  play? 
when  your  feet  tread  out  the  red  wine  of  harmony, 
and  your  fingers  drip  with  the  rich  juices  of  the 
keyboard's  vintage,  and  your  head  swims  and  your 
heart  beats  high  with  the  transporting  ecstasy  of  the 
draught.  I  grant  that  there  are  not  many  who  have 
it  in  their  power  to  become  thus  enviously  self -intoxi 
cate  ;  you  and  I,  perhaps,  if  we  lived  for  a  hundred 
years  and  devoted  our  whole  time  and  energy  and 
talent  to  this  end,  might  close  our  century  with  fail 
ure;  but  Pensieri  -Vani  was  born  with  the  gift, —  you 
have  it  there.  Moreover,  things  that  day  had  worked 
together  to  raise  him  to  an  unusually  exalted  frame 
of  mind.  If  you,  now,  had  spent  an  hour  previously 


64  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANL 

in  that  chapel  of  the  cathedral  which  houses  the  tre 
mendous  frescos  of  Signorelli, —  if  you  had  mounted 
to  the  darkling  organ-loft  during  the  first  low  mut- 
terings  of  an  impending  thunder-storm, —  if  you  had 
possessed  the  same  consciousness  of  being  backed  up, 
as  it  were,  with  a  great  array  of  banners,  and  censers, 
and  crucifixes,  and  mitered  prelates,  and  long-drawn 
procession  of  white-robed  acolytes,  and  all  the  other 
pictorially  significant  accessories  to  a  historical  and 
spectacular  Mother  Church, —  if  you  had  known  of 
the  presence,  somewhere  among  the  throng  of  won 
dering  and  impressionable  peasant-folk,  of  certain 
great  figures  from  the  capital — among  them  a  bevy 
of  Roman  princesses  —  who  might  be  counted  upon 
to  appreciate  your  technic  and  imaginative  power 
when  the  flock  of  Umbrian  contadini  could  but  trem 
ble  in  mere  wonder  and  amaze,  and  to  convey  a  vivid 
impression  of  your  genius  far  beyond  the  narrow 
walls  of  Orvieto, —  then  you,  too,  might  have  per 
haps  entered  upon  the  same  high-strung,  all-impelling 
mood  in  which  my  hero  drew  his  first  stops  and 
evoked  his  first  low,  rolling,  rumbling  tones  from 
the  expectant  instrument. 

He  felt  like  Phaeton,  gathering  up  the  reins  of  har 
mony  preparatory  to  a  long  chromatic  flight  among 
the  constellations  spangling  the  firmament  of  sound; 
like  Samson,  collecting  his  forces  to  grasp  the  great 
columns  towering  above  his  head  and  to  shake  the 
mighty  instrument  to  its  foundations;  like  Gabriel, 
inflating  his  celestial  physiognomy  to  rouse  the  dead- 
and-alive  dwellers  on  the  Umbrian  hillsides  by  the 
trumpet-blast  of  inspired  melody.  He  felt  capable  of 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANL  65 

anything,  everything, —  confident  of  the  inexhausti 
bility  of  his  imagination  when  put  into  motion  by  a 
worthy  theme,  and  of  the  entire  adequacy  of  his  prac 
tised  hand  to  heap  the  measure  of  his  self-expression 
to  the  full.  His  precise  theme  I  cannot  positively 
state.  I  ventured  to  question  him  on  this  point  some 
time  after,  when  rumors  of  his  great  performance  had 
begun  to  spread  abroad,  but  his  answer  was  very 
evasive,  and  I  never  learned  that  he  gave  any  one  else 
any  more  satisfaction  than  he  did  me.  I  only  know 
that  to  one  hearer  he  suggested  Angelo's  "Last  Judg 
ment  w ;  to  another,  Dante's  "Inferno";  Hors-Concours 
reverted  at  once  to  SignorellPs  "  Resurrection"  in  the 
church  itself;  and  a  German  painter  on  his  way  to 
Rome  could  think  of  nothing  but  Kaulbach's  "  De 
struction  of  Jerusalem^"  All  discriminating  and  trust 
worthy  reports  made  his  improvisation  one  wild 
mingled  torrent  of  weird,  awesome,  and  appalling 
effects, —  a  vast  fantasia  of  thunders  and  lightnings, 
of  tumult  and  terror,  of  shrieks  and  curses  and  con 
demnations,  of  tramplings  and  trumpet-calls,  and 
prayers  and  imprecations  and  vengeance  not  to  be 
stayed.  I  cannot  phrase  it ;  nor  could  he. 

Inspiration,  like  ambition,  grows  by  feeding  on 
itself.  It  is  a  stairway  that  ascends  by  a  sort  of 
geometrical  progression, — each  step  higher  and  more 
daring  than  the  last.  Pensieri-Vani,  with  each  mod 
ulation,  each  progression  of  chords,  each  masterful 
combination  of  stops,  almost  with  each  tremulous 
pulsation  of  the  reeds,  grew  more  eager,  more  con 
fident,  more  venturesome,  until  the  intoxicating 
moment  came  when  he  may  be  said  to  have  left  the 


66  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

topmost  step  of  his  stairway  and  to  have  launched  out 
upon  the  very  air  itself.  In  a  certain  marked  moment 
he  surprised  himself  with  a  chord  so  novel,  so  ravish 
ing,  so  complicated,  so  utterly  unexpected,  so  un 
known  to  his  past  experience,  and  so  unattainable 
(as  it  turned  out)  to  his  future,  so  quickly  and  com 
pletely  and  unmistakably  responded  to  by  his  thrilled 
and  spell-bound  auditory,  that  he  felt  urged  on  to  a 
higher  and  bolder  flight  than  any  he  had  even  hereto 
fore  attempted.  But  alackaday !  Just  at  the  mo 
ment  of  his  most  flamboyant  ecstasy,  when  his  brain 
whirled  wildly  and  his  heart  beat  with  thick-coming 
pulses  of  pure  exultation,  and  his  hands,  entangled  in 
a  maze  of  couplings  and  mixtures,  cried  appealiugly 
for  mercy  and  forgiveness,  while  his  feet  rumbled 
forth  inexorably  the  dread  judgment  of  damnation 
and  desolation  —  just  when  the  elder  of  the  prin 
cesses  was  murmuring  between  her  set  teeth,  "He 
must  not,  shall  not,  move  me,"  and  the  archbishop, 
half  supported  by  his  massive  crozier,  was  seen  to 
rise  startled  from  his  seat,  and  the  group  of  withered 
old  peasant  women  who  were  huddled  like  frightened 
sheep  before  the  altar-rail  began  to  moan  and  cry  out 
for  very  fear  and  terror  —  just  when  Pensieri-Vani 
himself,  involved  in  an  avalanche,  a  hurricane  of 
sound,  was  beginning  to  wonder  in  what  manner  he 
might  hope  to  descend  from  the  height  to  which  he 
had  so  audaciously  risen,  and  the  trembling  of  his 
hand  in  the  ingenious  and  complicated  piece  of  sus 
pended  harmony  upon  which  he  was  dwelling  brought 
up  before  him  with  a  shock  the  fate  of  Lucifer,  son 
of  the  morning — just  then,  I  say,  the  instrument; 
with  a  mighty  and  convulsive  shudder,  became  inar- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEBI -VANI.  67 

ticulate ;   a  strange,  vast,  sudden   silence  filled  the 
church  5    the   organ,    exhausted,   humbled,   silenced, 
confessed  itself  unequal  to  the  task  imposed  upon  it. 
Phaeton  was  checked  suddenly  in  his  reckless  course ; 
the  trumpet  was  snatched  away  in  a  twinkling  from 
the  archangel's  lips  ;  the  pillars  of  the  temple  of  music 
at  once  regained  their  equilibrium;  and  our  musician, 
somewhat  dazed  and  dizzy,  but  even  more  thankful 
than  dismayed,   climbed  down  from  his  lofty  post, 
while  his  audience  abandoned  itself  to  the  feelings 
evoked  by  so  stormy  an  address  and  so  unique  a  pero 
ration.    Pensieri-Vani,  feeling  not  unlike  the  daring 
Alpine  climber  who  falls  his  thousand  feet  and  drops 
into  a  merciful  snow-drift,  or  the  wrecked  aeronaut 
who  stands  indebted  for  his  life  to  some  opportune 
tree-top,  hardly  felt  sure  whether  he  had  succeeded  or 
failed;  but  he  congratulated  himself  that  his  audi 
ence,  at  least,  had  been  almost  ideal.     It  was  his  way 
to  bite  off  the  two  ends  of  society  and  to  throw  the 
middle  part  away,  and  here  he  had  had  the  extremes 
of  the  social  scale :  on  the  one  hand  the  simple,  un 
sophisticated,  uncontaminated  peasantry,  with  hearts 
to  be  moved  and  stirred ;  and  on  the  other  hand  some 
representation  from  the  urbane,  cultivated  circles  of 
the  cognoscenti,  possessed  of  trained  perceptions  and 
equipped  with  the  ability  to  formulate  their  impres 
sion  of  his  powers.     The  ladies  from  Rome,  in  par 
ticular, —  he  met  them  next  day,— were  very  felicitous 
in  their  recognition   of  the   altogether  exceptional 
nature  of  the  occasion,  and  in  the  end  placed  him 
more  in  their  debt  than  he  could  have  believed  possi 
ble.  The  daughters  of  a  princely  house,  they  exercised 
a  very  appreciable  influence  in  the  artistic  circles  of 


68  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

the  Eternal  City,  and  they  roundly  declared  that 
Pensieri-Vani  should  soon  have  an  opportunity  to 
play  before  an  audience  vastly  different  from  that 
which  had  gathered  within  the  cathedral  of  Orvieto. 
They  hinted  at  great  things,  and  Pensieri-Vani,  who 
knew  his  own  deserts  and  fully  understood  the  curi 
ous  position  that  the  Altissimi  held  between  the  Vati 
can  and  the  Quirinale,  was  for  a  time  in  a  state  of 
delicious  doubt  as  to  whether  his  next  endeavor 
should  be  before  Majesty  or  Sanctity.  Their  uncle, 
the  archbishop,  seemed  to  point  his  index-finger 
straight  toward  the  Leonine  City ;  but  their  mother, 
as  lady  of  honor  at  court,  sat  with  her  face  turned 
toward  Monte  Cavallo.  Majesty  carried  the  day,  and 
Pensieri  -Vani  was  summoned  before  the  Queen. 

Civilization  is  many-sided,  but  of  all  its  facets 
none  is  more  glittering  than  the  one  which  may  be 
called  the  power  of  formulation.  We  may  appreciate 
genius ;  we  may  even  give  to  our  appreciation  a  casual 
and  informal  expression;  but  until  we  can  formulate 
this  expression  and  give  its  object  an  authoritative 
and  widely  accepted  stamp  we  are  far  from  an  ideal 
polish  and  brilliancy.  This  grace  the  Latin  civiliza 
tion  can  claim ;  if  one  is  a  notable,  the  world  may  be 
so  informed  —  one's  notability  is  officialized.  Pen 
sieri  -Vani  was  a  notable ;  and  a  society  which  has 
at  its  bestowal  such  an  amplitude  of  honor  that  even 
the  meritorious  alien  may  be  cloaked  by  its  generous 
folds  dubbed  him  so.  This  is  how  the  Cavaliere 
became  a  cavaliere,  and  I  am  really  ashamed  to  have 
spent  so  much  time  over  so  simple  a  matter. 


VI 


ROME  :   THE  MARGRAVINE  AND  THE  IRON  POT 


ETWEEN  Pensieri- 
Vani's  visit  to  Rome 
for  the  purpose  in 
dicated  in  my  last 
paragraphs  and  his 
next  visit  to  the 
same  city,  an  interval 
of  five  or  six  years 
occurred.  To  the  nov 
ice  in  Italian  travel  it 
may  seem  strange, 
almost  impossible,  and 
perilously  near  to  the 
discreditable,  to  pass 
half  a  dozen  years  be 
tween  Sicily  and  the 
Alps,  and  in  all  that  time  never  to  set 
foot  in  La  Santa ;  but  the  Cavaliere 
knew  the  Seven  Hills  by  heart,  and  besides,  when  we 
think  of  it,  only  a  very  small  part  of  Italy  is  inclosed 
by  the  Aurelian  Wall.  Italy  is  such  an  inexhaustible 
treasure-house,  indeed,  that  his  six  years  might  have 


70  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

grown  easily  enough  to  twelve,  had  not  a  matter  of 
grave  import  called  him  at  a  certain  juncture  from  the 
Arno  to  the  Tiber.  This  was  an  affair  that  shook  the 
whole  peninsula,  and  at  one  time  threatened  the  most 
serious  international  complications ;  even  at  this  late 
date  there  are  those  in  Florence  and  Dresden,  Berlin 
and  Rome,  who  retain  the  most  vivid  recollection  of 
an  extremely  exceptional  affair,  and  who  are  pleased 
and  flattered  in  no  surer  way  than  by  a  request  to 
recite  —  for  the  hundredth  time,  perhaps  —  the  tale 
of  the  Margravine  and  the  Iron  Pot. 

It  may  be  that  some  of  you  have  resented  my  dis 
position  to  assume  your  familiarity  with  the  obscure 
and  inaccessible  relics  of  mid-Etruria,  and  perhaps  I 
was  wrong  in  expecting  even  a  remote  acquaintance 
with  matters  so  difficult  and  recondite.  I  hope  I  shall 
not  repeat  the  error  if  I  take  for  granted  a  certain 
familiarity  with  the  outlying  hills  of  Rome,  which, 
however  much  indeed  neglected,  are  sufficiently  in 
teresting  and  sufficiently  accessible  to  receive  the 
amount  of  attention  that  is  justly  their  due.  When 
you  have  made  your  pilgrimage  over  these  slighted 
and  deserted  tracts,  so  frequently  ignored  by  the  too 
hurried  gleaner,  you  have  gathered  in  such  a  harvest 
of  recollections  as  will  render  the  very  name  of  Rome 
a  delight  to  you  long  after  the  thoughts  of  the  greater 
roba  di  Roma  have  merged  themselves  into  a  mass 
of  indistinct  memories  —  recollections  of  long  strolls 
through  solitary  lanes,  among  whose  withered  hedge 
rows  the  quick  lizard  writhes ;  of  unlawful  trespassings 
on  quiet  gardens  and  cloisters,  enriched  with  sculp 
tured  wells  and  overshadowed  with  palm  or  pine ;  of 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  71 

entrance  into  some  ancient,  unchurched  church,  with 
its  half -forgotten  treasure  of  carved  altar  and  mosaic 
pavement,  where  frescoed  saints  and  angels  crumble 
slowly  from  the  damp  walls,  and  where  the  grim  old 
mosaics  of  the  apse  bend  down  upon  you  and  gloom 
ily  return  your  stare ;  of  tutelary  saints,  whose  ac 
quaintance  you  then  made,  and  whose  legends  you 
then  heard  for  the  first  time;  of  monkish  ciceroni, 
who  hardly  take  the  trouble  to  conceal  their  incredu 
lity  as  they  recite  their  time-honored  untruths,  yet 
slyly  wonder  if  the  inquisitive  stranger  will  be  con 
siderate  enough  to  disguise  his  own;  of  weak  and 
withered  old  men  who  open  up  their  obscure  haunts 
to  the  infrequent  visitor  and  timidly  direct  his  atten 
tion  to  poor  little  collections  of  antiquities  —  scraps 
of  marble  or  fragments  of  sculpture  dug  from  the 
neighboring  vineyard  or  picked  up  by  their  own 
doorsteps.  But  the  Ccelio,  the  Esquiline,  the  Aven- 
tine  are  marked  above  all  else  by  the  little  churches, 
obscure  and  desolate,  that  crown  their  tops  or  crouch 
in  the  gardens  on  their  sides.  And  of  all  these  the 
most  satisfactorily  obscure  and  desolate  and  remote 
is  perhaps  that  of  San  Sabio.  I  may  say,  just  here, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  over-exact,  that  there  is  no 
church  in  Rome  or  near  Rome  called  San  Sabio  — 
that  San  Sabio  is  merely  an  assumed  name.  For 
why  should  I  tack  its  real  appellation  to  this  spot 
when  no  good  end  would  be  served  by  doing  so? 
Why  should  I  prompt  the  enthusiastic  tourist  to 
make  a  long  and  weary  pilgrimage  over  the  remote 
Aventine  to  confront  him  in  the  end  with  a  barred 
and  bolted  gate  and  to  aggravate  him  by  the  absence 


72  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANI. 

of  a  custode  who  at  best  is  but  illusory  and  inter 
mittent!  The  vexed  and  disappointed  visitor  may, 
it  is  true,  see  above  the  tall,  flower-fringed  old  wall 
the  arched  windows  of  the  bell-tower  and  the  dark 
ling  little  loggia  of  the  arcaded  facade.  But  what 
can  a  mere  outside  view  tell  him  of  the  dusky  inte 
rior,  where  the  seamed  and  crackled  floor  lies  a  lovely 
pool  of  breeze-stirred  opus  alexandrinum,  into  which 
shreds  of  crumbling  frescos  fall  drop  by  drop  from 
the  stained  and  damp-oozing  walls;  or  of  the  old 
garden  without,  where  the  orange-trees  droop  heavily 
with  their  burnished  fruit  and  the  vines  lend  them 
selves  twiningly  to  the  inclosing  of  long  arbored 
walks  ?  To  know  San  Sabio  you  must  pass  the  gate, 
and  passing  the  gate  comes  by  favor  and  happy 
chance  if  it  ever  comes  at  all.  For  the  precincts  of 
San  Sabio  never  open  but  on  those  occasional  days 
when  the  red-gowned  students  of  the  Collegium  Ger- 
manicum  come  hither  to  spend  a  holiday,  to  pray  for 
giveness  for  imaginary  sins,  to  pace  the  orange-walks 
in  meditative  fancy,  to  refresh  themselves  around  the 
tables  of  the  old  monastic  refectory,  to  indulge  in  a 
worldly  little  game  of  bowls,  to  sing  massive  chorals 
with  a  magnificent  blending  of  tenors  and  basses  and 
all  the  deep  fervor  of  German  devotion.  For  San 
Sabio  is  wholly  given  over  to  Teutonia  —  no  less  so 
than  the  German  Embassy  on  the  Capitoline ;  nor 
does  the  garden  of  San  Sabio  seem  less  completely 
under  the  aegis  of  Germania  than  is  the  garden  of  the 
Palazzo  Caffarelli  itself.  And  so,  one  day,  when  the 
garden  of  San  Sabio  witnessed  the  great  discovery 
of  the  Iron  Pot,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  that  the  stu- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  73 

dents  who  unearthed  this  valuable  relic  should  have 
at  once  conveyed  it  to  the  Istituto  Archaeologico  Te- 
desco  on  the  Capitol,  where  it  might  rest  in  safety 
and  quiet  until  its  ultimate  ownership  and  final  dis 
posal  should  be  arranged. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  at  first  view  there  was 
very  little  about  the  Iron  Pot  to  arouse  that  interest 
which  subsequently  mounted  to  such  an  intense  and 
poignant  pitch.  It  was  merely  a  utensil  of  ordinary 
appearance,  ten  or  twelve  inches  across,  with  three 
little  rudimentary  legs  to  keep  it  right  side  up ;  and 
it  had  a  handle.  But  beyond  such  customary  and  to- 
be-expected  marks  as  a  long  interment  would  naturally 
confer  upon  it,  no  distinguishing  characteristics  could 
be  discerned — no  earmarks  of  style,  no  indications  of 
era.  Conjecture  had  not  a  single  peg  to  hang  a  guess 
upon;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  it  had  a  clear  and  un 
impeded  field  for  most  unbridled,  unbounded  specu 
lation,  whichever  it  pleased.  The  latter  alternative  of 
course  was  chosen,  and  the  attempt  to  make  something 
from  nothing  went  briskly  on.  The  Iron  Pot  was 
subjected  to  all  the  tests  that  experience  and  ingenu 
ity  could  contrive  —  microscopical,  chemical;  even 
spectrum  analysis  was  at  one  time  suggested,  and  the 
light  of  other  days,  whose  halo  surrounded  it,  nar 
rowly  escaped  dissipation  through  the  ingenuities  of 
modern  science.  The  spirituel  Jones-Browne,  whose 
poetical  interpretations  of  North  Italian  gothic  have 
had  such  an  extended  vogue,  and  have  placed  him 
before  the  public  as  the  most  accomplished  medie 
valist  of  the  day,  relegated  it  to  the  period  of  the 
sojourn  at  Avignon,  and  an  ardent  young  disciple  of 


74  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

his  penned  a  glowing  sonnet  upon  it  in  which  he  shed 
over  its  quaint  and  homely  form  a  tragic  luster  derived 
from  the  Orsini,  and  the  Colonnesi,  and  the  last  of  the 
Tribunes.  But  the  Roman  city,  to  which  five  hundred 
years  are  a  mere  yesterday,  laughed  this  view  to  scorn. 
The  erudite  ayiwcafo/DeProfuridiSjWhoseleaning  was, 
in  general,  distinctly  toward  the  early  empire,  saw  in 
its  robust  bulge  and  determined  squat  the  vigorous 
genius  of  the  Augustan  Age ;  and  he  offered  an  elab 
orately  restored  view  of  the  Roman  Forum  as  it  ap 
peared  in  the  earlier  days  of  Tiberius,  with  the  Iron 
Pot,  restored  to  its  rightful  pedestal,  wafting  a  cloud 
of  incense  through  the  midst  of  that  vastly  storied  in- 
closure.  But  the  eminent  and  estimable  Gregorianius, 
of  Gottingen,  felt  justified  in  claiming  a  higher  anti 
quity  and  a  more  transcendent  interest  for  the  Iron 
Pot  than  any  of  his  fellow-savants  had  ventured  upon. 
The  very  exceptional  manner  in  which  the  legs  were 
joined,  and  a  remarkable  indentation  on  one  side 
which  showed  up  through  the  incrusted  rust  only 
after  the  most  minute  and  painstaking  inspection, 
convinced  him  beyond  all  doubt  of  the  correctness  of 
the  position  he  straightway  took.  The  weird  and 
mysterious  angle  at  which  the  legs  stuck  out  from 
the  body  of  the  pot,  and  the  absolute  identity  be 
tween  the  mark  on  its  side  and  a  certain  character 
graven  on  the  face  of  one  of  the  rock-hewn  tombs  at 
Toscanella,  relegated  this  transcendent  oggetto  back 
to  the  dim  days  of  the  Etruscan  League  and  offered 
proof  positive — for  was  not  the  pot  found  within  a 
stone's-throw  of  the  Servian  wall? — of  the  existence 

lAvvocato :  an  Italian  gentleman  who  studies  law  to  practise  archaeology. 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  75 

of  an  Etruscan  settlement  twenty-five  hundred  years 
ago  upon  the  Aventine  Hill.  But  it  were  impossible 
to  give  space  to  all  the  theories  and  opinions  held 
regarding  this  great  "  find/7  while  a  hundredth  part 
of  the  erudition  displayed  in  setting  its  status  would 
swamp  my  little  account  completely.  Suffice  it  to 
say  that  the  Iron  Pot  was  the  theme  of  the  hour. 
Everybody  went  to  see  it,  everybody  talked  about 
it,  everybody  had  an  opinion  about  its  origin  and 
age,  everybody  disagreed  with  everybody  else,  and 
the  discussion,  becoming  more  contentious  and  can 
tankerous  every  day,  soon  transformed  one  of  the 
most  urbane  towns  in  Europe  into  an  unendurable 
nest  of  wranglers. 

But  the  trouble  as  to  the  mere  nature  of  the  Iron 
Pot  was  as  nothing  compared  with  the  trouble  that 
was  precipitated  when  the  matter  of  ownership  came 
to  be  decided.  If  it  could  have  been  awarded  to  the 
individual  who  unearthed  it;  if  it  could  have  been 
considered  the  property  of  the  proprietor  of  the  land 
on  which  it  had  been  discovered;  if  it  could  have 
been  put  up  and  raffled  off  at  a  public  tombola;  if  it 
could  at  once  have  been  annihilated  and  become  as 
a  thing  that  was  not,  these  present  lines  had  never 
blotted  paper.  But  what  particular  individual  dis 
covered  it  ?  were  not  a  dozen  or  more  concerned  in  the 
great  achievement?  What  particular  person  could 
be  said  to  control  the  ground  with  all  the  heredita 
ments  and  appurtenances  thereunto  belonging  ?  were 
not  the  precincts  of  San  Sabio  church  ground  that 
was  held  merely  by  the  sufferance  of  a  usurping  gov 
ernment  and  was  now  at  the  disposal  of  a  community 


76  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

of  foreigners  ?  Then,  as  for  a  tombola,  such  a  sugges 
tion  was  an  insult  to  the  dignity  of  this  venerable 
utensil ;  and  as  for  Nirvana,  the  precious  actuality 
of  the  Iron  Pot  could  not,  grazie  a  Dio,  be  so  lightly 
done  away  with. 

The  first  step  actually  taken  to  settle  the  ownership 
and  possession  of  the  Iron  Pot  may  readily  be  surmised 
by  those  familiar  (as  most  of  us  no  doubt  are)  with 
the  Italian  law.  The  Minister  of  Fine  Arts  and  Belles 
Lettres  sent  a  brief  but  courteous  note  to  the  Archae 
ological  people  apprising  them  that  the  discovery  of 
the  Iron  Pot  had  come  to  his  knowledge,  and  remind 
ing  them  that,  as  all  antiquities  and  art  treasures  un 
earthed  or  brought  to  light  were  regarded  as  the 
right  and  property  of  the  general  Government,  their 
proper  course  —  somewhat  strayed  from,  perhaps,  in 
the  excitement  of  the  moment  —  would  be  to  remit 
the  Iron  Pot  to  the  Curator  of  the  Museo  Capitolino, 
who  would  see  it  properly  rehabilitated  and  displayed 
for  the  regard  of  an  appreciative  public.  To  this  the 
Archeeologist-in-Chief,  who  had  no  doubt  anticipated 
this  request  and  in  some  measure  prepared  for  it, 
responded  in  a  letter  writhing  with  all  sorts  of  pol 
ished  Teutonic  convolutions  arid  written  in  a  baffling, 
eye-taxing  Teutonic  hand.  He  seemed  to  refer  the 
Ministry  of  the  Fine  Arts  to  the  German  Ambas 
sador,  and  wrote  plainly  enough  as  a  German  first 
and  an  archaeologist  afterward. 

The  Minister  of  Fine  Arts,  who  was  an  easy-going 
old  gentleman  with  a  certain  dislike  for  affairs,  and 
who  saw  on  what  lines  the  struggle  for  the  Iron  Pot 
was  likely  to  be  carried  out,  and  who  thought,  more- 


THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  77 

over,  that  he  had  done  about  all  that  could  be  ex 
pected  of  him,  took  the  hint  and  put  the  matter  in 
the  hands  of  the  Count  Imbroglio,  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Complications.  'Consequently,  a  week  or  two 
later — for  great  affairs  move  slowly,  no  less  than  great 
bodies— the  German  Embassy  received  a  communi 
cation  couched  in  the  suave  and  circuitous  French 
of  diplomacy,  restating  the  case  and  reiterating  the 
request.    And  when,  after  another  little  delay,  the 
Baron  Joch  von  Hoch  forwarded  an  autograph  reply 
— for  so  important  a  matter  as  this  threatened  to 
become  could  hardly  be  left  to  a  mere  attache  —  the 
controversy  was  fairly  opened  with  both  sides  fully 
committed  and  with  the  whole  town,   native  and 
foreign, —  especially  foreign,  for  the  affair  came  as  a 
perfect  godsend  to  the  leisured  Anglo-Saxon  colony, — 
divided  into  two  hostile  camps.     It  need  not  be  sup 
posed,  however,  that  all  the  Germans  were  on  the 
German  side,  or  all  the  Italians  on  the  Government 
side;   for  Italy,  as  everybody  knows,  swarms  with 
forestieri  more  intensely  Italian  than  the  Italians 
themselves,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  native  popula 
tion  contains  a  powerful  minority  to  whom  the  powers 
that  be  are  not  by  any  means  the  powers  that  ought 
to  be.     So  when  the  rumor  spread  abroad  that  a  cer 
tain  great  personage  associated  in  some  high  official 
capacity  with  the  Vatican  itself  was  about  to  take  ad 
vantage  of  the  situation  to  claim  the  Iron  Pot,  on  very 
plausible  grounds,  as  the  property  of  Holy  Church, 
it  began  to  look  as  if  the  contest  were  to  be  a  three- 
cornered  one,  after  all,  and  as  if  the  horror  of  civil 
strife  were  to  be  added  to  the  agony  of  foreign  war. 


78  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

For  the  letter  of  the  Baron  Joch  von  Hoch,  though 
it  said  nothing  distinctly  except  that  in  a  matter  of 
such  transcendent  importance  he  could  scarcely  ven 
ture  to  act  upon  his  own  responsibility,  but  would  lay 
the  matter  before  his  chief  at  Berlin,  seemed  to  inti 
mate,  through  its  fine-spun  web  of  vague  and  circui 
tous  and  ambiguous  phraseology,  that  it  would  be  the 
part  of  wisdom  to  let  sleeping  dogs  lie,  or,  if  they 
must  be  roused,  to  at  least  minimize  their  yelpings ; 
and  a  second  epistle  from  him,  replying  in  set  terms 
to  Imbroglio's  reiteration  of  the  point  of  government 
jurisdiction,  denied  any  such  jurisdiction,  and  main 
tained  that  the  Collegium  Germanicum  and  all  per 
taining  to  it  must  be  considered  as  inviolate  as  the 
bounds  of  the  German  Embassy  itself.  Imbroglio 
replied  that,  in  such  a  matter  as  this,  the  German 
Embassy  was  no  more  exempt  than  any  other  quarter 
would  be :  had  the  Iron  Pot  been  unearthed  in  the 
garden  of  the  Palazzo  Caffarelli  itself  instead  of 
in  the  garden  of  San  Sabio,  his  point  would  still 
have  been  the  same.  The  correspondence  went  on, 
of  course,  to  a  much  greater  length  than  I  can  follow, 
and  became,  as  may  be  supposed,  more  involved, 
more  mystifying,  more  laden  with  courteous  super 
fluities  with  every  paragraph, —  until  a  final  commu 
nication  from  Von  Hoch  seemed  to  remotely  convey 
the  portentous  threat  that  unless  the  matter  were 
speedily  adjusted  the  great  Prince  Drei-Haare  might 
be  expected  to  issue  from  his  Northern  fastness 
and  spread  dismay  and  desolation  throughout  the 
whole  Peninsula. 

The  effect  of  this  upon  the  country  I  prefer  not  to 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  79 

describe.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  "un  meeting"  was 
called  to  assemble  in  the  Piazza  Navona,  that  the  Iron 
Pot  was  made  the  order  of  the  day  at  Monte  Citorio, 
that  a  deputation  from  the  provinces  came  up  to  Rome 
to  demand  a  firm  stand  for  their  native  rights  and 
dignity,  and  that  an  appeal  went  from  the  Quirinale 
to  the  Vatican  that  the  papal  claim  be  withdrawn  for 
the  sake  of  the  honor  and  glory  of  Italy,  which  de 
manded  that  the  Iron  Pot  remain  on  its  own  proper 
side  of  the  Alps.  The  Vatican,  although  it  could  not 
promise  its  active  support,  agreed  to  at  least  withdraw 
from  its  antagonistic  attitude,  and  the  nation  breathed 
free.  The  Iron  Pot  was  still  within  the  borders  of 
Italy, — United  Italy,  —  and  the  prospect  of  its  re 
maining  there  seemed  to  brighten;  while  the  Teutonic 
party  apparently  began  to  lose  heart. 

Then  it  was  that  the  Margravine  of  Schwahlbach- 
Schreckenstein,  putting  on  her  famous  false  front  and 
assuming  her  well-known  expression  of  grim  deter 
mination,  set  out  for  Rome.  The  drooping  cause  of 
the  Fatherland  was  to  be  sustained,  and  the  Margra 
vine,  as  every  one  felt,  was  eminently  calculated  for 
the  undertaking. 

The  Margravine  of  Schwahlbach-Schreckenstein 
was  an  immensely  determined  old  woman,  and  a  very 
wicked  old  woman,  too,  if  the  truth  were  to  be  told. 
The  recital  of  her  eccentricities  at  Baden  Baden  and 
of  her  exactions  and  tyrannies  at  Schwahlbach  itself 
—  she  was  finally  invited  to  leave  the  country  for  its 
general  advantage,  and  did  —  would  make  quite  a 
chapter  of  itself;  but  I  cannot  enter  into  the  subject: 
we  are  now  considering  the  Margravine  purely  as  an 


80  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

artistic  figure,  and  the  line  between  art  and  morals, 
as  the  most  advanced  of  us  know,  cannot  be  too 
rigorously  maintained.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  Mar 
gravine  had  a  will  of  her  own,  and  exercised  it ;  and 
the  Roman  city  felt,  when  she  landed  at  the  Stazione 
Centrale,  that  the  matter  might  now  very  soon  be 
expected  to  come  to  a  head. 

All  this  time,  of  course,  the  original  question  — that 
of  the  character  of  the  Iron  Pot  —  was  not  lost  sight 
of.  The  two  controversies  went  on  side  by  side,  and 
when  the  public  grew  a  little  more  weary  of  the  one 
question  than  of  the  other,  it  changed  off ;  just  as  a 
sentry  on  duty  shifts  his  weight  from  one  leg  to  the 
other.  At  one  time,  when  the  nature  of  the  Iron  Pot 
seemed  of  more  moment  than  its  ownership,  one  of 
the  Ministry  sent,  in  a  semi-official  way,  for  Pensieri- 
Vani,  who  was  at  Florence,  to  come  to  Rome  to  pass 
a  final  word  upon  the  claims  put  forward  by  the 
advanced  Etruscan  wing.  The  Cavaliere,  who  studi 
ously  avoided  controversy  and  had  an  utter  abhor 
rence  of  all  legal  processes,  had  no  desire  whatever 
to  enter  into  the  thickening  fray,  but  he  had  a  friend 
or  two  in  the  cabinet,  and  entertained  very  decided 
sympathies,  of  course,  for  the  Italian  side,  so  he  al 
lowed  himself  to  be  conducted  to  the  Palazzo  Pagetto 
by  Imbroglio  incognito,  where  the  Iron  Pot  was  in 
custody  of  the  British  Embassy  pending  a  decision, 
and  took  a  private  view  of  the  much-controverted 
utensil.  He  straightway  declared  his  opinion  that  the 
Iron  Pot  was  a  relic  of  the  Garibaldian  Era,  and  might 
date  back  perhaps  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury.  He  confidently  recommended  its  prompt  surren- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  81 

der  to  the  Teutonic  contingent ;  and  the  Ministry,  who 
feared  much  less  the  clamor  of  thepopolo  romano  than 
the  ridicule  of  the  polite  world,  immediately  resolved 
upon  a  course  of  action.  So  when  the  Margravine, 
in  full  battle  array,  presented  herself  at  the  Ministry 
of  Foreign  Complications,  which  she  did  promptly  the 
day  after  her  arrival,  she  was  met  with  a  courtesy 
and  suavity,  a  mild-spoken  deference,  which  com 
pletely  nonplussed  and  disarmed  her.  The  smiling 
Imbroglio  assured  her  that  in  consideration  of  her 
intercession  his  Government,  swayed  by  her  manifold 
estimable  traits  as  a  woman  and  a  ruler,  and  her  wide 
and  favorable  reputation  as  a  patron  of  the  Fine  Arts, 
had  decided  to  withdraw  its  claim  and  submit  to  have 
the  Iron  Pot  once  more  rehoused  in  the  Archaeological 
Institute,  to  remain  at  the  disposal  of  the  illustrious 
race  which  she  herself  so  honored  and  adorned ;  and 
the  Margravine,  only  half  pleased, —  for  she  really 
panted  for  the  fray, —  smoothed  down  her  ruffled 
feathers  and  withdrew. 

Now,  Pensieri-Vani's  judgment  on  the  Iron  Pot, 
though  privately  given,  soon  became  noised  abroad, 
and  the  clamor  of  contending  voices  again  filled  the 
town.  Having  taken  his  position,  he  was  now  com 
pelled,  whether  or  no,  to  maintain  it  5  and  he  did 
maintain  it,  bolstering  it  up  with  a  long  array  of  pros 
and  cons  and  whys  and  wherefores.  But  he  made 
very  few  converts ;  only  an  extremely  small  minority 
accepted  his  dictum.  Almost  everybody  maintained 
an  inviolate  confidence  in  the  genuineness  of  the  Iron 
Pot ;  all  orders  rallied  to  the  support  of  the  popular 
idol ;  the  age  of  Faith  seemed  to  have  again  returned 


82  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

Most  rock-rooted  of  all  was  the  belief  of  the  German 
Embassy;  they  were  compelled  to  believe  to  save  their 
own  credit  and  dignity.  Bnt  even  more  adamantine 
yet  was  the  belief  of  the  Margravine  of  Schwahlbach- 
Schreckenstein,  whose  energetic  mind  was  now  en 
gaged  in  fabricating  around  the  Iron  Pot  the  most 
enormous  and  astounding  fictions  that  could  possibly 
be  conceived  of.  So  Pensieri-Vani  left  them  to  their 
own  devices,  and  after  a  quiet  little  excursion  to  the 
Vigna  San  Sabio  he  returned  to  his  quarters  in 
Florence. 

The  Iron  Pot  then  rested  at  last  within  the  Ger 
man  lines,  and  the  Baron  Joch  von  Hoch  shortly 
announced  the  series  of  festivities  which  would  at 
tend  its  departure  from  Eome  for  Berlin,  where  it 
would  be  placed  in  the  Konigliche-und-Kaiserliche 
Museum  and  vie  with  the  great  Kaulbachs  themselves 
in  interest  and  splendor.  This  intelligence  filled  the 
Margravine  with  anger  and  dismay ;  for  be  it  known 
that  she  had  come  to  Eome  to  possess  the  Iron  Pot 
for  herself,  and  she  had,  moreover,  a  better  claim 
upon  it  than  had  yet  occurred  to  anybody  to  suspect. 
If  the  pot  had  gone  to  the  Italians  it  would  have 
been  the  property  of  the  Italian  Government,  but  as 
long  as  it  was  to  go,  after  all,  to  the  Germans,  it 
should  be  the  property  of  the  person  who  unearthed 
it.  That  was  the  law  and  the  gospel.  Who,  then, 
had  discovered  it?  Her  own  grandson.  Was  not 
this  youth  a  member  of  the  Collegium  Germanicum  I 
(Indeed  he  was,  preparing  for  a  Rhine  archbishop 
ric  ;  for  in  this  way  the  Margravine  hoped  to  strike 
a  balance  with  an  offended  Heaven.)  Was  he  not 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

present  in  the  Vigna  of  San  Sabio  on  that  eventful 
Thursday  afternoon  ?  Had  not  he  been  included  in 
the  group  which  had  made  the  great  discovery?  Had 
it  not  been  his  hand  that  had,  not  indeed  actually 
wielded  the  spade,  but  had  dragged  forth  the  Iron 
Pot  by  its  handle,  and  held  it  up  triumphantly  to  the 
light  of  day  ?  Yes,  a  thousand  times  yes  !  Here  was 
her  claim,  and  she  would  make  it  good.  She  spoke, 
and  the  whole  town  trembled. 

But  she  did  nothing  precipitately ;  she  knew  Von 
Hoch  of  old,  and  felt  that  a  strong  momentum  would 
serve  her  better  in  the  end  than  a  high  rate  of  speed. 
Besides,  Joch  von  Hoch  —  though  no  one  could  ques 
tion  his  bravery  —  was  temporarily  out  of  town,  and 
she  had  no  desire  to  treat  with  any  one  other  than  the 
head  and  front  of  the  Embassy  himself.     In  the  mean 
while  she  strengthened  her  position  at  law  and  ar 
ranged,  furthermore,  to  bring  to  bear  all  that  social 
pressure  which  sometimes  succeeds  when  everything 
else  fails.     She  entered  upon  an  imposing  series  of 
conversazioni  —  she  was  much  too  parsimonious  to  un 
dertake  balls  or  dinners  —  and  drew  her  guests  from 
the  various  circles  of  the  city,  literary,  artistic,  offi 
cial,  diplomatic,   native,    stranger  —  permanent  and 
"  passing  through."    In  collecting  this  circle  she  set 
aside  some  of  her  most  cherished  animosities:   her 
very  first  evening  was  attended  by  the  granddaughter 
of  the  Minister  of  Pomps  and  Vanities — a  pert  young 
minx  whom  she  cordially  detested,  but  who,  as  the 
betrothed  of  Von  Hoch's  grandnephew,  might  well 
be  put  to  some  use.     Her  idea  was  to  unite  all  the 
opposing  factions,  even  the  German  one,  against  the 


84  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

obdurate  occupant  of  the  Palazzo  Caffarelli.  Talk  was 
cheap,  and  she  encouraged  them  to  talk.  She  also 
talked  a  good  deal  herself.  The  subject  of  all  this  talk 
I  need  not  explain ;  but  the  Margravine's  own  contri 
bution  to  it  at  the  first  of  her  reunions  was  notable 
enough  for  very  particular  mention.  She  announced, 
here,  her  own  theory  of  the  origin,  nature,  history, 
and  adventures  of  the  Iron  Pot.  She  had  given  the 
matter  careful  and  endless  thought,  she  had  held  it 
up  in  this  light  and  that,  and  now  she  knew  her  mind. 
In  the  robust  and  sturdy  outlines  of  the  Iron  Pot,  and 
in  the  tender  mysticism  of  its  transcendental  handle, 
she  saw  the  mark  of  a  national  genius  quite  at  vari 
ance  with  that  of  Rome,  of  Etruria,  of  medieval  Italy, 
the  mark  of  the  glorious  and  mighty  German  race ; 
and  the  Iron  Pot,  in  her  estimation,  was  a  miracu 
lously  conserved  example  of  sturdy  and  primitive  Ger 
man  art.  Nay,  more ;  it  was  also  a  mighty  and  endur 
ing  monument  of  ancient  German  history.  In  her 
mind's  eye  she  saw  the  rapacious  legions  of  Caesar 
snatching  the  precious  vessel  from  the  rude  altar  of 
Germania's  ancestral  gods  reared  in  the  forests  of  the 
fir-fringed  Oder.  She  saw  it  borne  in  triumph  before 
Germanicus  through  the  trophied  Via  Sacra,  while 
the  dishonored  but  unbending  Thusnelda  stalked 
proudly  behind  his  chariot- wheels ;  and  she  called 
loudly  upon  her  compatriots  present  —  they  were 
more  numerous  and  more  enthusiastic  than  she  had 
dared  to  hope  —  to  rally  to  her  support  and  restore  to 
her  this  precious  relic  of  her  heroic  ancestress.  In 
fact  the  Margravine  went  quite  beyond  herself  and 
carried  her  hearers  with  her;  and  it  was  pretty 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  85 

definitely  decided  that  before  such  vehemence,  such 
eloquence,  such  volubility,  such  determination,  the 
obstinate  Baron  must  soon  succumb. 

Within  a  week  or  two  he  was  given  an  opportunity 
to  do  so.  The  Margravine  sent  to  him  an  envoy  bear 
ing  a  statement  of  her  case  and  a  somewhat  peremp 
tory  demand  for  the  restitution  of  her  property. 
She  received  a  response  of  curt  and  prompt  refusal. 

Then  the  Margravine  set  her  teeth  and  pulled  her 
self  together  for  one  great,  final  effort.  She  put  on  a 
new  front  —  a  front  so  palpably  false  that,  compared 
with  this,  her  last  had  been  the  tritest  verity,  the 
most  rock-rooted  certitude  —  a  front  as  hideous  and 
awe-impelling  as  the  traditionary  chevelure  of  Me 
dusa  herself ;  and  her  wrinkled  old  face  took  on  an 
expression  of  such  fell  and  inflexible  determination 
that,  by  comparison,  the  look  she  had  carried  to  the 
Foreign  Ministry  had  been  but  one  of  mere  wavering 
imbecility.  Then  she  ordered  out  her  equipage  of 
state,  with  the  well-known  Schwahlbach  liveries  of 
scarlet  and  saffron,  and  decreed  an  advance  upon  the 
Capitol.  As  the  chariot  rumbled  through  the  Corso, 
shopkeepers  and  pedestrians  alike  paid  the  tribute 
of  a  curiosity  which  ranged  all  the  way  from  awe  to 
vague  alarm ;  as  it  wound  slowly  up  the  broad  road 
way  which  doubles  on  the  Capitoline  slopes,  the  she- 
wolf  caged  in  the  adjacent  shrubberies  gave  forth  an 
ominous  howl ;  and  as  the  Margravine,  having  dis 
mounted,  began  to  hobble  up  the  great  scalone  of  the 
Palazzo  Caffarelli,  the  attaches,  with  a  precision  and 
a  unanimity  proper  to  the  most  philosophical  and 
most  military  of  modern  peoples,  displayed  an  instant 


86  THE   CHEVALIEE  OF   PENSIERI -VANI. 

desire  to  devote  themselves  to  pressing  concerns  in 
remote  parts  of  the  edifice.  That  very  afternoon  a 
slight  shock  of  earthquake  was  felt  at  Terracina, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  away  5  though  this,  of 
course,  must  be  regarded  merely  as  one  of  those  sin 
gular  coincidences  that  are  constantly  taking  place. 
The  interview  between  the  Margravine  and  the 
Baron  Joch  von  Hoch  took  place  with  closed  doors, 
and  but  faint  echoes  of  it  reached  the  outside  world. 
One  person  only  witnessed  any  part  of  it,  and  though 
he  never  afterward  alluded  to  it  except  in  the  most 
guarded  terms,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  it  must 
have  been.  It  was  epic,  heroic,  Wagnerian, —  an  Iliad, 
a  Sinfonia  Eroica,  Siegfried  and  Briinhilde  in  mortal 
combat, —  a  battle-hymn  full  of  clash  and  clangor,  of 
over-wrought  crescendos,  of  braying  trumpets  and 
sounding  cymbals,  with  "tutti"  marked  over  every 
bar,  and  "  fortissimo  "  set  against  every  staff.  It  had 
lasted  half  an  hour,  and  was  apparently  approaching 
a  climax  beyond  which  a  full  orchestra  doubly  aug 
mented  for  the  occasion  could  scarcely  be  expected  to 
go,  when  the  sole  auditor  and  eye-witness  entered  for 
a  brief  moment  upon  the  scene.  This  was  a  timid 
young  clerk,  who  bore  to  the  Baron  a  brief  communi 
cation  that  had  come  all  the  way  from  the  Via  Venti 
Settembre, —  a  note  from  the  Minister  of  Finance,  in 
fact.  The  effect  produced  by  this  missive  was  almost 
magical.  The  turbulence  of  the  period  of  Storm- 
and-Stress  gradually  trailed  away  through  the  long 
reaches  of  a  soothing  diminuendo,  and  when  the 
reception-chamber  oped  its  ponderous  and  marble 
jaw  the  Margravine  stalked  forth  triumphant.  The 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  87 

Iron  Pot  was  at  last  her  own.  The  German  nation 
renounced  forever  any  claim  upon  this  precious  vessel, 
and  made  but  one  condition :  the  trophy  was  to  re 
main  always  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Deutsches 
Eeich  and  to  be  open  always  to  the  view  of  the 
Deutsches  Volk.  The  Margravine  willingly  enough 
assented  to  this, —  and  in  writing, —  and  returned 
home,  having  added  another  triumph  to  the  trebly 
hundred  of  which  the  poet  sings. 

Her  own  part  of  the  agreement  she  immediately 
prepared  to  execute,  and  the  day  was  set  which 
should  see  the  Iron  Pot  carried  back  again  across 
the  Alps,  when  there  reached  her  from  the  Finance 
Office  a  communication  that  quite  dumfounded  her. 
The  chief  commissioner  of  the  Department  of  Exter 
nal  Revenue  inclosed  a  polite  note,  calling  her  atten 
tion  to  the  law  governing  the  duties  on  the  export  of 
works  of  art,  objects  of  virtu,  etc.,  and  naming  the 
figure  at  which  the  Iron  Pot  had  been  valued  by  a 
committee  of  experts.  The  figure  was  enormous,  and 
the  Margravine  was  fairly  stunned.  One  tenth  of  the 
duty  levied  upon  the  Iron  Pot  would  suffice  to  purchase 
a  thousand  thousand  of  the  ordinary  iron  pots  of  com 
merce,  and  the  Margravine  found  herself  set  squarely 
between  defeat  on  the  one  hand  and  bankruptcy  on 
the  other  and  obliged  to  choose.  The  genuineness  of 
the  Iron  Pot  she  could  not  dispute  ;  she  believed  in  it 
devoutly.  She  could  not  bring  up  against  the  Min 
istry  Pensieri-Vani's  verdict;  his  opinion  had  been 
quite  unofficial,  and  nobody  had  accepted  it,  any 
way, —  least  of  all  the  Margravine  herself,  who  could 
joyfully  have  torn  this  dissentient  young  man  limb 


88  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI - VANI. 

from  limb.  And  the  export  law  was  adamant.  The 
Margravine  chose.  Is  it  necessary  to  say  how  she 
chose?  Financial  ruin  was  bad,  no  doubt;  but  to 
have  a  sweeping  victory  turned  at  the  last  moment 
into  a  rout  was  worse.  She  put  herself  into  imme 
diate  communication  with  Amsterdam  and  Frank 
fort,  and,  a  week  or  two  later,  accompanied  by  the 
Iron  Pot,  but  otherwise  utterly  stripped  and  impov 
erished,  she  passed  through  Innsbruck  on  her  way 
north.  She  had  either  sold  or  mortgaged  all  her 
earthly  possessions,  but  she  preserved  a  bold  front  to 
the  end,  and  left  behind  her  in  Italy  an  immense  repu 
tation  for  vigor,  prowess,  and  pure  nerve  —  stern  old 
monolith  that  she  was. 

The  Iron  Pot,  then,  was  hers  at  last  —  hers,  and 
hers  alone;  yet  that  it  could  not  long  remain  hers 
she  but  too  clearly  saw.  She  knew  that  the  honor 
and  glory  of  bringing  it  back  to  Germany  was  all  that 
she  could  in  the  end  receive  as  her  due,  and  that  she 
must  appeal  to  the  patriotism  of  the  Fatherland  to 
take  this  white  elephant  off  her  hands.  She  accord 
ingly  announced  that  she  was  open  to  negotiations 
for  the  purchase  of  the  Iron  Pot ;  but  the  competitors 
for  the  sacred  relic  were  neither  as  numerous  nor  as 
august  as  she  had  hoped  for.  In  the  end  it  went  to  a 
second  cousin  of  hers,  the  Gross-Herzog  of  Schreck- 
enstein-Putz  (who  considered  himself  quite  a  figure 
in  the  art  world),  at  a  price  which  the  Margravine 
regarded  as  distinctly  paltry  —  hardly  more  than 
double  the  amount  of  the  export-duties.  The  Iron 
Pot  is  now  in  the  grand-ducal  collection  at  Putz, 
where  it  sometimes  attracts  the  wondering  attention 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  89 

of  occasional  visitors.  Pensieri-Vani  himself  saw  it 
there  a  few  years  ago.  He  smiled  quietly  to  himself, 
but  said  not  a  word,  though  he,  as  far  as  I  am 
aware,  is  the  only  being  in  the  world  who  knows  all 
that  might  be  said. 


VII 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  PO :  MASTER  AND  PUPIL 

HE  Prorege  of  Arcopia  had 
not  been  by  any  means  un 
interested  in  the  controversy 
whose  chief  points  I  have  en 
deavored  to  set  down,  and  would 
in  all  probability  have  himself 
come  to  Rome  to  take  part  in  it 
but  for  one  or  two  considera 
tions  that  seemed  to  render  such 
a  step  somewhat  awkward  and 
difficult.  In  the  first  place,  he 
had  sedulously  avoided  the 
capital,  since  accepting  the  posi 
tion  he  at  present  enjoyed, 
feeling  that  a  close  vicinity  to 
the  power  from  which  he  held  authority  might 
place  him  in  a  position  requiring  considerable  dex 
terity  to  be  maintained  with  anything  like  grace; 
and  in  the  second  place,  he  had  very  particular 
reason  for  feeling  —  and  keenly  feeling  —  that  his 
duty  toward  the  Arcopians  should  take  precedence 
of  any  other  concern.  For  on  his  return  to  Ar- 

90 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  91 

copia  from  his  self-imposed  exile  he  had  met  a  re 
ception  so  warm,  so  cordial,  so  enthusiastic  that  he 
could  only  dumbly  wonder  how  he  had  ever  found  it 
in  him  to  turn  the  cold  shoulder  on  such  a  loyal  and 
devoted  people.    As  he  passed  through  the  streets  of 
the  capital,  amidst  a  whirhvind  of  flying  banners  and 
a  great  chorused  shout  of  welcome  from  ten  thousand 
throats,  remorse  tugged  at  his  heartstrings,  and  con 
trition  seemed  almost  welling  from  his  eyes.     And 
when  the  triumphal  procession  reached  the  Piazza 
Grande,  and  he  looked  about  and  saw  in  what  manner 
the  Arcopians  had  availed  themselves  of  his  absence 
to  make  a  very  tangible  and  explicit  expression  of 
their  feelings  for  him,  he  was  constrained  to  turn 
away  his  face  and  chokingly  declare  himself  the  most 
heartless  and  ungrateful  of  rulers.    For  there,  before 
his  very  eyes,  stood  the  viceregal  palace,  splendid  in 
the  new  facade  whose  projection  some  months  before 
had  been  at  the  bottom  of  that  pitiable  misunderstand 
ing  and  estrangement, — but  a  facade  much  more  bril 
liant  and  stately  and  complete  than  he  would  have  ever 
dared  ask  :  the  twenty  polished  columns  reared  them 
selves  grandly  in  one  long,  unbroken  line,  the  mosa 
icked  borders  and  devices  glittered  bravely  in  the  sun, 
and  the  broad  frieze  bore  a  long  dedication  (in  much 
abbreviated  but  most  heart-warming  Latin)  to  the 
"  noblest  and  best-beloved  of  princes."     The  Prorege 
was  completely  overcome,  and  in  making  his  formal, 
public  acknowledgment  of  this  great  and  surprising 
kindness  he  roundly  declared  that  nothing  in  his  whole 
life  had  pleased  or  touched  him  more  —  that  the  ful 
filment  of  none  of  his  most  ardent  and  long-cherished 


92  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI-VANI. 

desires  could  have  given  him  a  greater  happiness  than 
this  spontaneous  and  freely  made  offering.  This  dec 
laration  of  the  Prorege's  contained  depths  of  mean 
ing  that  the  unillumined  outsider  could  scarcely  be 
expected  to  fathom ;  for  it  was  well  known  in  certain 
circles  that  his  most  intense  desire  was  for  an  heroic 
statue  to  be  erected  during  his  lifetime  by  the  Arco- 
pian  people ;  and  it  was  no  great  secret  to  many 
of  his  intimates  who  had  seen  him  now  and  then  ap 
ply  his  hand  in  a  peculiarly  caressing  and  tentative 
manner  to  his  temples  that  he  regarded  his  own  head 
as  exceptionally  adapted  to  the  wearing  of  a  kingly 
crown.  His  declaration,  then,  was  particularly  sweep 
ing  and  comprehensive,  but,  in  all  probability,  quite 
sincere  j  for  I  doubt  if  a  statue  of  the  most  colossal 
proportions  or  a  throne  of  the  most  magnificent  pos 
sibilities  would  have  eclipsed  in  his  sight  the  new 
facade  of  the  viceregal  palace. 

And  to  such  a  people  as  this  he  had  come  back 
empty-handed !  He  could  not  but  regard  himself  as 
a  very  shabby  and  ungrateful  fellow,  and  if  his  recol 
lection  of  his  quest  for  the  Perugino  had  not  remained 
to  reassure  him  that  his  intentions,  at  least,  had  been 
of  the  best,  he  would  doubtless  have  seen  himself  in 
a  light  more  unfavorable  still.  He  made  up  his  mind 
at  once  that  his  people's  evidence  of  regard  and  esteem 
should  be  requited  as  promptly  as  possible.  He  would 
repay  them,  and  repay  them  in  kind.  He  would  erect, 
at  his  own  expense,  some  great  architectural  monu 
ment  and  hand  it  over  in  fee  simple  to  the  Arcopian 
people.  He  would  build  a  town  hall,  a  palazzo 
pubblico  that  would  be  much  more  an  honor  and  a 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  93 

credit  to  the  city  than  the  present  edifice ;  and,  return 
ing  without  great  delay  to  the  mainland,  he  would 
search  out,  in  a  kind  of  architectural  tour,  the  most 
recherche  and  attractive  models  that  Lombardy  and 
Venetia  had  to  offer,  and  would  erect  vis-d-vis  to 
his  own  rehabilitated  residence  a  fabric  that  should 
be  a  worthy  companion  to  it  as  well  as  a  lasting  token 
of  his  gratitude. 

It  were  ungracious,  perhaps,  to  comment  too 
pointedly  here  upon  the  Prorege's  motives  and  pref 
erences  ;  but  it  is  useless  to  deny  that  he  was  some 
what  prone  to  self-indulgence,  or  to  blink  the  fact 
that  if  he  were  going  back  to  Italy  on  an  architectu 
ral  excursion  he  would  be  merely  going  just  where  he 
wanted  to  go  in  order  to  do  just  what  he  wanted  to 
do.  For  him  Italy  was  the  land  of  lands,  and  archi 
tecture  the  interest  of  interests — the  art  of  arts.  His 
leaning  toward  music  was  truly,  as  I  have  elsewhere 
implied,  sufficiently  pronounced ;  but  he  never  re 
garded  that  art  as  virile  enough  to  fill  the  major 
space  in  his  mind.  Architecture,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  considered  the  most  masculine,  vigorous,  and  dig 
nified  of  all  the  arts,  and  the  architect  he  esteemed 
as  the  most  manly  and  honorable  and  many-sided  of 
all  art- workers  —  one  who  presented  the  highest  union 
of  the  practical  and  the  esthetic,  who  walked  with 
his  feet  upon  the  earth  and  his  head  among  the 
clouds,  and  wielded  all  the  forces  that  art  might 
offer  —  the  rhythm  of  music,  the  glow  of  painting, 
the  rotund  pomp  of  sculpture,  the  graceful  certitudes 
of  geometry,  the  clearness  and  directness  and  force 
of  rigorous  logic.  When  the  Prorege  talked  like  this 


94  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

his  hearers  nudged  each  other  and  whispered  that  he 
was  an  architect  himself.  And  so  he  was.  Not  that 
he  claimed  to  be  absolute  master  of  all  the  technical 
minutiae  which  form  a  sine  qua  non  for  the  active 
practitioner ;  but  he  had  a  clever  pencil,  a  teeming 
fancy,  and  he  could  throw  off  graceful  and  pic 
turesque  sketches  by  the  dozen  without  the  slightest 
effort.  He  troubled  himself  very  little  about  founda 
tions,  but  was  matchless  when  it  came  to  facades.  He 
reveled  in  theory,  but  in  the  matter  of  practice  he 
was  apt  to  fall  back  upon  his  bureau  of  construction. 
However,  all  the  structures  erected  from  his  designs 
were  very  creditable,  and  the  credit,  of  course,  was 
monopolized  by  the  Prorege  himself.  Nor  was  this 
altogether  unjust ;  for  the  Prorege  possessed  a  style 
characterized  by  that  sort  of  cozy  sublimity  which 
may  be  illustrated  by  Raphael's  "  Vision  of  Ezekiel " 
in  the  Pitti,  and  though  his  buildings  were  necessarily 
of  no  great  size,  and  involved  generally  but  a  very 
limited  outlay,  yet  they  had  an  effect  of  massive 
dignity  and  spacious  splendor  that  other  practitioners 
vainly  endeavored  to  rival.  The  Prorege's  faculty 
with  stone  and  mortar  was,  in  fact,  the  one  thing  that 
as  much  as  any  other  endeared  him  to  his  subjects ; 
for  the  Arcopians  gloried  in  a  monumental  expression 
of  their  civic  greatness,  and  looked  upon  peoples  who 
could  not  express  their  race  and  epoch  in  enduring 
marble  as  very  poor  creatures  indeed. 

For  this  tour  of  his  through  the  valley  of  the  Po, 
which  would  be  in  a  certain  way  official, —  quite  un 
like,  sans  dire,  that  informal  excursion  through  Tus 
cany, —  the  Prorege  determined  upon  an  escort  com- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANL  95 

mensurate  with  his  own  dignity  and  with  the  impor 
tance  of  the  undertaking.  He  set  out,  accordingly, 
with  four  or  five  of  his  younger  nobility  (he  was 
extremely  partial  to  young  men :  one  with  the  right 
look  out  of  his  eyes  and  the  right  slope  to  his  shoulders 
seldom  failed  of  the  princely  favor),  together  with 
servants  and  attendants  to  the  proper  number ;  and 
he  was  prompted  to  add  to  his  entourage  a  certain 
young  gentleman  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  at 
Pisa,  and  whom  he  invited  to  join  him  at  Padua. 
This  was  Mr.  George  W.  Occident,  who,  during  his 
occupancy  of  the  Palazzo  Camera-Mobiglio,  on  the 
Pisan  Lung7  Arno,  had  made  a  distinct  impression  on 
the  viceregal  mind.  The  Prorege  regarded  him  as  a 
promising  young  barbarian,  of  whom,  in  skilful 
hands,  something  might  be  made, —  as  a  blank  page 
which,  after  the  removal  of  certain  thumb-marks  and 
smudges,  might  receive  words  well  worth  the  trouble 
of  writing;  and  he  resolved  that  he  would  give  a 
part  of  his  time  during  the  coming  month  to  the 
good  work  of  preparing  this  blank  page  for  the 
impress  that  the  world — his  world  — should  put 
upon  it.  I  think  it  was  the  young  man's  total  and 
appalling  ignorance  of  the  noble  art  of  architecture 
that  first  prompted  the  Prorege  to  this  missionary 
work.  Occident,  in  his  uninstructed  state,  really  had 
no  more  business  among  the  monuments  that  fill  the 
valley  of  the  Po  or  of  the  Arno  than  a  deaf  man  has 
at  a  symphony  concert,  or  a  paralytic  among  the 
diamond-fields  of  Africa.  He  had  no  conception  of 
the  significance,  social,  artistic,  historical,  which  brick 
and  stone  may  take  unto  themselves,  and  he  could 


96  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI -VANI. 

ramble  about  the  streets  of  Verona  or  Siena  or  Vi- 
cenza, —  almost  every  one  of  them  a  free  gallery  of 
masterpieces, —  seeing  nothing  and  quite  unconscious 
that  there  was  anything  to  see.  If  he  happened  to 
admire  anything,  it  was  sure  to  be  the  worst;  this 
was  one  of  the  thumb-marks  —  one  of  the  slightest, 
however  —  that  the  Prorege  set  himself  to  remove. 

But  this  mere  absence  of  knowledge  gave  the  Pro 
rege  no  particular  concern  j  Occident  was  extremely 
bright,  and  picked  up  ideas  with  the  utmost  readi 
ness,  and  whatever  deficiencies  he  displayed  might 
easily  be  made  good.  That  which  really  troubled  the 
princely  pedagogue  was  the  number  of  points  on 
which  the  young  man's  opinions  were  already  com 
pletely  shaped  and  tenaciously  held  —  opinions  which 
the  Prorege  could  not  but  regard  as  fallacious  and 
erroneous  —  the  result  of  birth,  and  early  training 
(or  lack  of  training),  and  ways  of  life  and  thought 
more  or  less  unguided  and  undisciplined  and  un- 
illumined.  Into  this  formidable  field  of  thistles  the 
painstaking  Prorege  forthwith  plunged.  For  Occi 
dent  was  a  clever  fellow,  a  handsome  fellow,  a  very 
prepossessing  fellow;  and  as  long  as  he  himself  had 
taken  the  first  step  in  his  own  reclamation,  the  Pro 
rege  considered  that  no  supplementary  assistance 
which  his  experience  could  suggest  should  remain 
ungiven.  Occident,  according  to  his  own  account, 
was  barely  twenty- two  when,  having  become  master 
of  himself  and  of  an  abundant  fortune,  he  resolved  to 
flee  the  general  awfulness  of  Shelby  County  and  to 
see  for  himself  if  life  were  not  better  worth  living 
than  he  could  make  it  seem  in  the  region  where  he 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  97 

had  had  the  misfortune  to  be  born.  He  tried  more 
than  once  to  set  this  region  and  its  social  peculiari 
ties  fully  before  the  Prorege ;  but  his  hearer  shook 
his  head  and  smiled  a  sad  autumnal  smile,  and  sighed 
that  such  a  state  of  things  must  forever  remain  quite 
unintelligible  to  him.  But  the  Prorege  found  it  no 
more  unintelligible  than  Occident  himself  had  found 
it  intolerable;  and  he  strove  toward  the  light,  first 
by  a  short  residence  in  Dearborn,  where  no  great 
advance  was  gained;  and  afterward  in  Shawmut, 
which  seemed  better,  but  not  all  his  fancy  had  painted 
it.  Then  he  had  tried  London  and  Paris,  and  more 
recently  Florence  and  Rome.  The  Prorege  was 
highly  charmed  by  this  little  account  of  the  pere 
grinations  of  his  pupil,  who  seemed  to  him  to  have 
gained  a  higher  post  and  a  broader  outlook  with  every 
step  he  had  taken,  and  told  him  encouragingly  that, 
placed  as  he  now  was,  there  would  be  but  one  higher 
step  to  take,  and  that  he  would  soon  be  put  in  a  posi 
tion  to  take  it.  Occident  rightly  construed  this  as  an 
invitation  to  visit  Arcopia,  and  was  properly  grateful 
and  elate. 

But  his  gratitude  quite  outstripped  his  tact;  he 
was  constantly  doing  and  saying  things  that  evoked 
a  regretful  remonstrance  from  his  patron.  His  very 
acknowledgment  of  the  Prorege's  letter  of  invitation 
contained  a  phrase  which  grated  sadly  on  the  vice 
regal  ear ;  he  wrote  that  he  would  join  the  party  if 
he  could  "  find  the  time."  The  Prorege  took  him  up 
at  once.  It  seemed  strange  to  him,  he  declared,  that 
a  young  man  possessing  a  fortune  of  as  many  mil 
lions  of  lire  as  Occident  was  known  to  enjoy  should 


98  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

have  difficulty  in  "finding  time"  for  any  plan  that 
he  might  set  on  foot.  To  him  the  only  man  to  be 
envied  was  the  man  whose  time  was  in  some  degree 
his  own ;  and  the  most  pitiable  object  that  civiliza 
tion  could  offer  was  the  rich  man  a  slave  to  his  chro 
nometer.  Too  much  had  been  said  about  the  dignity 
of  labor,  and  not  enough  about  the  preciousness  of 
leisure.  Civilization,  in  its  last  outcome,  was  heavily 
in  the  debt  of  leisure,  and  the  success  of  any  society 
worth  considering  was  to  be  estimated  largely  by 
the  use  to  which  its  fortunati  had  put  their  spare 
moments.  He  wrung  from  Occident  the  confession 
that,  in  the  great  land  of  which  Shelby  County  may 
be  called  the  center,  activity,  considered  of  itself  and 
quite  apart  from  its  objects  and  its  results,  was  re 
garded  as  a  very  meritorious  thing;  and  he  learned 
that  the  bare  figure  of  leisure,  when  exposed  to  the 
public  gaze,  was  expected  to  be  decorously  draped  in 
the  garment  of  strenuous  endeavor.  People  were  re 
quired  to  appear  busy  even'  if  they  were  not.  This 
gave  the  Prorege  a  text  for  a  little  disquisition  on  the 
difference  between  leisure  and  idleness.  He  was  very 
eloquent  over  it,  but  I  dare  say  you  will  pardon  me 
if  I  fail  to  report  his  remarks. 

I  may  note,  however,  his  state  of  mind  on  learning 
that  Occident,  just  before  setting  out  for  Padua,  had 
sent  a  full  synopsis  of  his  own  intended  movements 
to  the  public  prints.  This  way  of  doing  things,  in  a 
private  person,  a  person  of  no  official  station  what 
ever,  seemed  to  the  Prorege  to  merit  in  the  highest 
degree  the  brand  of  the  reprehensible,  and  he  lost  no 
time  in  reading  his  young  friend  a  second  little  lecture 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.  99 

in  praise  of  privacy.  In  privacy,  he  declared,  there 
was  a  fine  charm,  a  high  distinction;  and  in  the 
present  age,  when  the  machinery  of  celebrity  was  so 
cunningly  contrived  that  almost  anybody  who  would 
drop  in  his  penny  might  set  the  model  to  working, 
privacy  rose  to  dignity,  and  might,  indeed,  rank  as  a 
virtue.  At  this  point  the  harassed  Occident  brusquely 
declared  that  in  Shelbyville  nothing  was  more  public 
than  privacy,  nothing  more  ostentatious  than  reti 
cence,  nothing  more  calculated  to  draw  the  unfavor 
able  notice  of  the  community  than  any  attempt  at 
seclusion;  and  the  perplexed  Prorege,  with  a  mild 
glance  of  dismay,  seemed  to  feel  for  the  first  time  the 
magnitude  of  the  task  he  had  undertaken. 

This  little  colloquy  took  place  one  cool  September 
morning  in  the  Piazza  Grande  at  Vicenza,  where  the 
Prorege  sat  in  a  retired  corner  with  a  sketch-book  in 
his  lap,  Palladio's  great  Palazzo  del  Consiglio  before 
his  eyes,  and  Occident,  assiduously  sharpening  pencils, 
at  his  elbow.  It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  the  Pro- 
rege's  attitude  that  he  was  any  great  devotee  of  the 
Palladian  or,  indeed,  any  more  devoted  to  the  Renas 
cent  than  an  Italian  must  necessarily  be ;  but  his  taste 
was  sufficiently  catholic  to  allow  him  to  enjoy  a  good 
thing  of  whatever  school,  and  to  him  the  rehabilitated 
palace  at  Vicenza  seemed  a  very  good  thing  indeed. 
He  endeavored  vainly  to  recall  any  other  monument 
of  the  time  that  was  as  broad,  as  free,  as  gracious,  as 
exempt  from  the  chill  of  the  mere  classic, —  one  more 
marked  with  the  mark  of  virile  grace,  more  clearly 
stamped  with  the  erudition  of  the  scholar,  more  ex 
pressive  of  the  virtu  of  the  man  of  the  world,  more 


100          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

dressed  in  the  suave  dignity  of  the  "  complete  cour 
tier."  The  Prorege  appreciated  the  age  of  faith,  I 
hope,  but  he  appreciated  quite  as  much  the  age  of 
good  breeding.  He  declared  that  in  the  present  vul 
gar,  mussy,  weak-backed  day  the  rivaling  of  this 
great  fabric  by  any  original  creation  was  well-nigh — 
he  did  not  say  quite — impossible;  and  Occident,  re 
verting  to  the  Shelbyville  court-house,  with  its  crested 
mansards  and  its  rococo  cast-iron  "  statuary,"  almost 
understood  what  his  preceptor  meant. 

The  age  of  faith  presently  addressed  them  at  Ve 
rona.  If  Vicenza  presented  itself  to  them  in  the  trunk- 
hose  and  doublet  of  the  Renaissance,  the  city  on  the 
Adige  received  them  in  the  full  canonicals  of  the 
middle  ages,  and,  as  they  groped  about  the  dusky 
precincts  of  San  Zeno,  or  Sant'  Anastasia,  or  San 
Fermo  Maggiore,  Occident  became  conscious  of  mov 
ing  in  an  atmosphere  distinctly  non-secular.  But  even 
here,  they  found  the  world  addressing  them  in  the 
graceful  and  high-bred  structures  of  Sammicheli  and 
Fra  Giocondo;  and  to  the  Prorege,  who  recalled  now 
the  various  Giocondan  facades  lining  the  Canalazzo  at 
Venice,  the  style  evolved  by  the  clever  friar  seemed 
peculiarly  practicable,  reputable,  attainable,  applicable 
to  a  wide  variety  of  cases,  and  worthy  of  a  much  more 
extended  vogue  than  it  had  ever  enjoyed.  He  almost 
resolved  that  its  modest,  clear-cut,  and  sightly  sim 
plicity  would  solve  his  problem  for  him;  and  he  sent 
back  word  to  certain  of  his  party  who  had  lingered 
behind  in  Venice,  to  do  what  they  could  for  him  in 
this  direction.  In  fact,  the  Prorege  had  seen  no 
thing  at  all  of  his  young  nobles  since  reaching  the 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF 

mainland;  the  Arcopian  light  cavalry,  as  he  called 
them,  moved  quite  independently  of  the  main  body 
of  the  army, — he  was  the  main  body, — and,  indeed, 
there  was  a  tacit  understanding  that  their  escort  duty 
should  be  confined  to  the  larger  cities.  He  anticipated 
their  making  a  wide  sweep  westward  and  joining  him 
somewhere  in  time  for  them  to  enter  Milan  together. 
But  they  certainly  did  not  turn  up  at  Cremona,  no 
word  from  them  reached  him  at  Piacenza,  and  he  could 
only  hope  that,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  they  might  ap 
pear  at  Pavia,  or  even  at  Milan  itself.  I  may  say  just 
here,  however,  that  they  never  did  anything  of  the 
sort. 

In  the  mean  time  Occident  remained  the  Prorege's 
sole  companion,  and  our  amiable  prince  was  thus  en 
abled  to  concentrate  upon  him  the  attention  that 
would  otherwise  have  been  distributed  among  his 
proteges  at  large.  Dissertation,  disquisition,  argu 
ment,  and  instruction  poured  forth  in  an  abundant 
flood,  and  poor  Occident,  hurried  along  on  the  rolling 
torrent,  cast  his  eye  about  vainly  for  a  succoring  spar. 
The  Prorege  was  now  showing  a  disposition  to  leave 
the  lower  plane  on  which  he  had  treated  of  the  details 
of  mere  personal  conduct,  and  to  discuss,  on  the  broad 
and  lofty  plateau  of  the  Abstract,  questions  of  gov 
ernment,  society,  and  civilization  at  large, —  all  in 
brief  sentences  and,  as  it  were,  in  words  of  one  syl 
lable,  suited  to  the  untutored  mind  for  whose  im 
provement  he  was  laboring.  They  devoted  more  than 
one  long  stroll — strolling  is,  of  course,  at  its  best 
through  the  low  arcades  and  empty  piazze  of  a  North 
Italian  town — to  consideration  of  affairs  of  state,  and 


TKB  .CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEBI-VANI. 

I  think  I  could  show  you  the  precise  street-corner  in 
Mantua — it  was  adorned  with  a  sculptured  balcony 
from  which  an  inquisitive  black-eyed  young  woman 
in  a  red  neckerchief  looked  down — where  they  con 
sumed  a  good  half  hour  in  casting  about  for  a  simile 
to  properly  illustrate  the  structure  and  course  and 
functions  of  a  national  government.  Occident — his 
figure,  no  doubt,  was  suggested  by  the  great  river 
which  had  served  in  some  degree  as  their  base  of  oper 
ations — saw  a  nation's  life  and  progress  as  the  hurry 
ing  onward  of  a  vast  stream, — much  slime,  doubtless, 
at  the  bottom,  and  more  or  less  foam  on  the  top,  but 
a  great  volume  of  water  sufficiently  pure  rolling 
orderly  and  powerfully  on  between.  The  Prorege, 
who  slyly  surmised  that  but  for  certain  considerations 
Occident's  "foam"  might  have  been  simply  "froth/' 
or  even  "scum/'  and  who  somewhat  resented  the  in 
trusion  of  so  aqueous  a  simile  into  an  excursion  purely 
architectural,  rejoined  that  such  an  illustration  might 
serve  to  set  forth  the  movement  of  a  restless  democ 
racy,  but  would  hardly  hold  water  when  stretched  to 
a  wider  application.  He  had  seen  more  than  one 
great  river  hurl  itself  headlong  with  all  the  blind,  un 
reasoning  fury  of  a  destroying  flood,  involving  all 
things  in  one  indiscriminate  disaster,  and  he  had  seen 
the  same  stream  at  another  time,  now  shrunken  away 
to  a  mere  shadow  of  its  former  strength,  dribble  piti 
fully  and  ineffectually  through  the  parched  and  dreary 
fields  of  a  thirsty  land.  Drought  and  flood  and 
whirlpools  and  hidden  rocks,  he  feared,  awaited  the 
navigator  on  his  young  friend's  impetuous  and  unre 
liable  stream.  No,  for  a  true  and  adequate  figure  of 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          103 

the  structure  of  a  state  one  must  draw  upon  the  noble 
art  of  architecture,  and  must  picture  to  himself  a  vast 
fabric  founded  on  the  solid  rock  and  towering  up 
through  a  varied  circumstance  of  strength  and  grace 
and  grandeur  for  all  the  world  to  envy  and  admire : 
the  substructure  built  from  the  ranks  of  a  sturdy 
peasantry,  the  ponderous  columns  hewn  from  the 
quarry  of  a  landed  nobility,  the  graces  of  facade  and 
sky-line  conferred  by  the  practice  of  those  arts  by 
which  civilization  is  adorned,  and  this  whole  sup 
porting  structure  crowned  and  rounded  off  and  pro 
tected  by  a  vast  and  swelling  dome.  The  Prorege's 
expansive  manner,  just  here,  indicated  clearly  enough 
where  the  great  feature  of  the  Arcopian  fabric,  at 
least,  might  be  found.  Such  an  edifice,  he  went  on  to 
say,  utterly  excluded  the  idea  of  equality ;  each  stone 
had  its  own  place  and  function,  and  comparison  was 
quite  debarred.  The  peasant-hewn  substructure,  while 
a  sine  qua  non  as  far  as  concerned  the  strength  and 
stability  of  the  social  edifice,  should  rest  satisfied  with 
performing  its  humble  though  indispensable  duty, 
and  should  leave  to  the  shining  columns,  the  sculp 
tured  pediments,  the  bossy  swell  of  serried  balus 
trades,  and  to  the  great  dome  itself  the  dignity  of  the 
Double  Stars  which  the  strolling  connoisseur  might 
see  fit  to  confer.  But  was  there  to  be  no  hope,  Occi 
dent  plaintively  inquired,  for  the  poor,  modest  little 
blocks  in  the  lower  courses?  Was  all  opportunity  for 
" rising  in  the  world"  to  be  hopelessly  negatived  by 
the  weight  of  that  remorseless  mass  of  pomp  and 
splendor  above  them  ?  At  which  the  Prorege  shrugged 
his  shoulders  and  replied  that  as  long  as  the  body 


104          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

politic  trudged  along  the  highway  of  destiny  the  feet 
must  take  their  share.  He  was  willing  enough  to 
make  the  road  as  comfortable  as  possible,  but  he 
could  not  promise  that  poor  humanity  would  ever  be 
able  to  fly ;  and  the  spectacle  of  to-day's  society,  trying 
to  lift  itself  by  its  own  bootstraps,  struck  him,  he 
declared,  as  the  most  ludicrous  and  most  pitiful  of 
exhibitions. 

This,  to  poor  Occident,  who  was  the  victim  of  un 
tried  and  delusive  theories  and  generous  but  ill- 
judged  enthusiasms,  seemed  unspeakably  callous  and 
cruel,  and  in  a  retaliatory  spirit  he  tauntingly  in 
quired  what  was  the  boasted  rock  on  which  the 
modern  Latin  civilizations  were  founded.  But  the 
Prorege  had  anticipated  this  question  and  was  ready 
with  his  answer.  The  edifice  of  a  perfect  ideal  civil 
ization,  he  declared,  consisted  of  two  parts — foundation 
and  superstructure ;  but  no  civilization  had  ever  ex 
isted,  as  far  as  he  could  recall,  which  exhibited  these 
two  parts  in  full  and  equal-  combination.  The  civil 
ization  of  the  South  was  a  superstructure  on  a  waver 
ing  and  insecure  foundation;  the  civilization  of  the 
North  was  a  mere  foundation  with  scarcely  any  super 
structure  at  all.  Now  every  structure,  no  matter  how 
strongly  founded,  was  destined  to  ruin  in  the  end; 
such  being  the  case,  which  sort  would  his  young  friend 
choose, — the  graceful  and  pleasing  fabric  of  the  Ital 
ian  civilization,  erected  on  such  an  unstable  mass  of 
debris  as  a  ruin- strewn  past  might  offer  and  honey 
combed  by  a  certain  political  and  financial  incapacity, 
or  the  abortive  and  truncated  effort  of  the  Anglic 
civilization,  —  a  foundation  whose  stability,  indeed, 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          105 

had  as  little  to  fear  from  the  disintegration  of  deficit 
as  from  the  shock  of  invasion,  but  whose  jagged  top- 
courses  called,  and  seemed  to  call  in  vain,  for  the 
superstructure  that  in  right  should  crown  it  ?  Would 
he  choose  the  Opera,  the  Carnival,  the  Accademia,  the 
Salon,  the  Concorso,  the  Grand  Prix  de  Rome,  all 
resting  on  a  foundation  of  finance  and  politics  more 
or  less  insecure ;  or  would  he  accept  Magna  Charta, 
and  Habeas  Corpus,  and  Trial  by  Jury,  and  Repre 
sentative  Government  and  the  Clearing-House, —  a 
broad  and  magnificent  foundation,  indeed,  but  no 
more  a  building  than  a  headless  trunk  is  a  man? 
How  would  he  choose  ?  How,  in  fact,  had  he  already 
chosen  ?  And  the  poor  young  fellow,  whose  presence 
in  Italy  was  alone  a  sufticient  answer,  blushed  and 
hesitated,  and  answered  never  a  word.  He  delighted 
in  the  pictorial  aspects  of  the  Southern  civilizations, 
but  he  was  by  no  means  blind  to  the  merits  of  his 
own,  and  he  felt  that  the  more  he  defended  the  social 
scheme  of  which  he  was  a  part,  the  more  he  would 
be  obliged  to  defend  himself  for  having  detached 
himself  from  it. 

But  the  Prorege  forbore  to  altogether  overwhelm 
his  pupil,  and  events  presently  took  a  turn  which 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  transfer  his  whole  at 
tention  to  the  other  young  men  on  whom,  during  this 
excursion,  he  was  expected  to  keep  a  guardian's  eye. 
When  within  a  day  or  two  of  Milan, —  this  was  after 
a  little  flight  southward,  of  which  I  shall  soon  take 
occasion  to  speak, —  hearing  nothing  whatever  of 
them,  he  caused  inquiries  to  be  made,  which  might 
better  have  been  made  before.  These  inquiries  told 


106          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

him  so  much  on  the  one  hand,  and  so  little  on  the 
other  that  he  resolved  to  turn  about  at  once  and  to 
go  back  in  all  haste  to  Venice.  In  this  city  he  learned 
at  last  why  his  escort  had  so  persistently  failed  to 
appear.  For  the  Prorege  had  scarcely  departed  from 
St.  Mark's  on  his  great  architectural  quest  when  these 
flighty  and  graceless  youths,  who  had  other  interests 
besides  stone  and  mortar,  and  who  did  not  fully  ap 
preciate  their  good  ruler  in  his  ultra-didactic  moods, 
had  got  their  luggage  and  their  servants  together 
and  gleefully  scampered  over  the  Semmering  to  Vi 
enna.  This  conduct  affected  the  sensitive  Prorege 
most  keenly.  He  felt  outraged  as  a  man,  a  scholar,  a 
prince,  a  censor  morum,  and  he  set  out  immediately 
in  search  of  the  delinquents,  for  whose  treachery  he 
resolved  to  contrive  some  unique  and  terrible  punish 
ment.  But  as  he  failed  to  reach  Milan  on  the  one 
hand,  so  he  failed  to  reach  Vienna  on  the  other.  For 
he  had  got  scarce  fifty  miles  from  Venice  when  the 
accidental  but  enforced  breaking  of  his  journey  at 
a  certain  little  town  near  the  head  of  the  Adriatic 
occasioned  an  abrupt  abandonment  of  his  chase.  In 
this  little  town  —  its  name  I  know,  but  shall  not  tell 
— a  casual  stroll  introduced  him  to  a  certain  exquisite 
little  building  which,  he  instantly  declared  upon  en 
countering  it,  set  the  seal  of  success  upon  his  whole 
undertaking,  completing  an  enterprise  which  he  was 
beginning  to  feel  was  about  to  lapse  away  to  a  poor 
and  pointless  close.  It  was  the  Palazzo  Comunale  of 
the  place,  a  gem  of  pure  Venetian  gothic;  rather 
small  and  simple,  but  of  a  light  grace  and  a  balanced 
symmetry  quite  unmatched.  An  air  of  dignity  resided 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  107 

in  the  row  of  arched  windows  that  drew  their  line 
across  its  front  and  in  the  double  stairway  leading 
up  to  the  doorway  that  opened  in  their  midst ;  and  the 
buoyant  lightness  of  its  pointed  arches,  and  its  fringe 
of  wavy  battlements,  seemed  almost  enough  to  make 
it  float.  This,  it  came  over  the  Prorege,  was  the  most 
aquatic  of  styles — a  style  unsurpassable  for  the  chief 
fabric  in  the  capital  of  his  island-state.  He  fell  to 
sketching  it  con  amore  ;  his  errant  charges  passed 
completely  out  of  his  mind.  He  returned  to  Arcopia 
with  the  rough  plans  of  his  chef-d'oeuvre  already 
blocked  out:  whether  or  no  the  young  Arcopians 
themselves  ever  got  back  home  again,  I  do  not  feel 
obliged  to  state. 


VIII 

ANAGNI:  THE  END  OF  A  CAREER 


"""V  HE  Prorege,  on  turning 
back  from  Milan  to  fol 
low  in  the  track  of  his  dis 
loyal  retinue,  had  given  up 
something  more  than  a  mere 
inspection  of  the  monu 
ments  that  adorn  the  Lorn- 
bar  die  capital ;  for  he  had 
purposed,  in  a  moment  of 
playful  condescension,  no 
thing  less  than  a  visit  of 
surprise  to  the  Seigneur  of 
Hors-Concours  high  up  in 
his  alpine  fastnesses.  His 
comparative  proximity  to  the  mountains  of  Piedmont 
made  this  little  excursion  a  matter  of  no  great  diffi 
culty,  and  he  had  resolved  to  reveal  to  the  younger 
members  of  the  Arcopian  nobility,  who  were  some 
what  prone  to  the  delights  of  metropolitan  life,  the 
degree  of  dignity  that  might  be  enjoyed  by  a  landed 
proprietor  through  simply  residing  upon  his  own 
estate.  The  elder  generation  of  the  Arcopian  aris- 

108 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          109 

tocracy  did  reside  mainly  upon  their  own  estates, 
and,  accepting  with  equal  readiness  the  rights  and 
duties  of  their  position  and  their  degree,  completely 
fulfilled  their  functions  as  "  pillars  of  the  state,"  and 
were  thus  quite  exempt  from  the  sorry  expedient  to 
which  heads  of  families  in  less  happily  organized 
states  were  forced  —  that  of  expressing  their  social 
importance  through  their  wives  and  daughters.  Each 
of  the  great  Arcopian  nobles  was  under  all  circum 
stances  and  from  all  points  of  view  the  head  and  front 
of  his  own  family  and  clan  in  no  less  degree  than  he 
was  the  proprietary  and  magisterial  chief  of  his  own 
lands  and  his  own  peasantry.  The  Arcopian  popula 
tion,  in  fact,  except  a  fraction  that  followed  the  arts 
and  another  fraction  that  followed  the  sea,  was  largely 
agricultural,  and  exhibited  in  high  union  the  chief 
virtue  and  the  chief  grace  of  civilized  society — order 
and  picturesqueness.  The  disturbing  and  ungracious 
catchword,  "  Egalite,"  had  never  crossed  the  Arcopian 
sea :  if  the  Prorege  had  not  been  tolerably  sure  that 
his  mild  sway  was  to  be  undisturbed  by  the  clangor 
of  cantankerous  boiler-makers  and  the  bickerings  of 
a  bumptious,  shopkeeping  bourgeoisie  he  would  never 
have  undertaken  the  task  at  all.  He  regarded  him 
self  as  a  just,  humane,  and  sympathetic  ruler,  but  he 
believed  that  every  man  should  have  his  own  proper 
place,  and  fill  it. 

What  he  would  have  thought  of  the  Seigneur,  had 
circumstances  but  permitted  him  to  push  on  to  the 
Hauts  Rochers  de  Hors-Concours,  I  scarcely  care  to 
surmise,  for  he  would  have  found  the  master  far  away 
from  home  and  have  learned  that  he  had  not  visited 


110          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

his  patrimony  for  the  past  year  or  more.  Whether 
Hors-Concours'  retainers  could  have  told  the  Prorege 
their  absent  master's  whereabouts  I  hardly  know ;  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  had  been  spending  the  early  part 
of  the  autumn  along  with  Pensieri-Vani  among  the 
Hernican  hills.  The  time  had  come  to  Pensieri-Vani, 
as  it  indeed  comes  to  every  other  sojourner  in  Italy , 
when  he  felt  the  need  of  some  positive  tonic,  not  phy 
sical  merely,  but  rather  mental ;  when  he  required 
some  radical  change  of  scene  and  environment. 
Hors-Concours  had  suggested  that  he  visit  him  in 
Savoy,  with  possibly  a  fortnight  at  Neuchatel.  He,  in 
turn,  had  suggested  to  Hors-Concours  an  excursion 
down  toward  the  Neapolitan  frontier, —  a  sojourn  in 
the  Abruzzi;  and  this  latter  suggestion  so  far  pre 
vailed  that  they  spent  several  weeks  together  among 
the  Pelasgic  towns  that  look  down  into  the  valley  of 
the  Sacco.  They  exchanged,  then,  the  somnolent  air 
of  Pisa,  the  supercivilized  atmosphere  of  Florence, 
for  the  unvitiated  azure  of  Anagni ;  the  mild  pasto- 
ralities  of  the  Val  d?  Arno  gave  place  to  the  wild  and 
rugged  drama  of  the  Volscian  landscape;  and  the 
amiable  peasantry  of  mid-Tuscany  fell  back  before 
the  barbaric  and  essentially  unreliable  mountain-folk 
of  the  lower  Abruzzi.  They  resolved  that  for  a  time 
they  would  make  a  truce  with  art  and  would  seek 
man  and  nature  in  as  unadulterate  a  state  as  could  be 
hoped  for  in  sophisticated  Italy.  They  could  think 
of  no  more  promising  field  than  the  ancient  territory 
of  the  Volsci  and  the  Hernici,  where  nature  rages  un 
tamed  and  untamable  ;  where  man  exists  hardly  less 
primitive  and  barbaric ;  where  the  immemorial  vil- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.          Ill 

lages  perched  on  the  edges  of  beetling  precipices  frown 
down  their  looks  of  suspicion  and  defiance  upon  the 
up  ward- toiling  visitor ;  where  the  excess  of  art  which 
so  hems  in  and  oppresses  one  in  other  parts  of  the 
peninsula  suffers  a  grateful  abatement,  and  the  iron 
rule  of  the  old  masters,  so  powerful  elsewhere,  is  un 
heeded  and  unknown ;  where  the  omnipresence  of  bi 
ography  is  scaled  down  to  scrappy  mention  of  a  few 
great  medieval  families, —  the  Gaetani  with  their  prin 
cipalities  and  the  Conti  with  their  pontiffs, —  magni 
ficent,  indeed,  but  mercifully  remote ;  where  the  chief 
monuments  refer  back  to  an  age  so  distant  and  so 
obscure  that  no  connecting-link  has  yet  been  found  to 
bind  them  to  ourselves, —  monuments  whose  rugged 
and  tremendous  fabric,  whose  history  and  whose 
builders,  could  scarce  have  been  less  a  riddle  and  a 
study  to  the  Romans  than  to  us.  Such  a  turn  in  the 
wheel  as  this,  the  Cavaliere  felt,  would  almost  make  a 
new  man  of  him,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  when  he 
settled  down  again  to  his  studies  in  October  the  third 
volume  of  his  great  work  on  the  Unknown  Tuscan 
Masters,  which  had  been  languishing  along  for  some 
time,  would  receive  a  very  decided  impetus. 

Our  two  friends,  as  I  have  said,  quartered  them 
selves  in  Anagni  —  Anagni,  venerable  and  pictures 
que  old  town  that  clings  terrace  above  terrace  to  the 
bare  sides  of  its  limestone  hills ;  Anagni,  that  over 
flows  with  a  profusion  of  quaint  medieval  mementos 
tided  over  from  the  most  obscure  of  the  old  Gothic 
days,  and  that  from  its  rocky  perch  opens  up  to  every 
casual  glance  long  vistas  of  wild  and  tumultuously 
magnificent  landscape.  They  camped  out,  as  it  were, 


112          THE  CHEVALIER   OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

in  one  of  the  great  vaulted  chambers  of  the  antique 
papal  palace,  a  massive  and  cumbersome  relic  now 
harboring  a  variety  of  tenants  and  devoted  to  a 
variety  of  uses ;  and  they  softened  the  dura  sorte  of 
stony  floors  and  narrow  casements  by  a  shelfful  of 
books,  a  flute  and  a  fiddle,  and  a  row  of  flower-pots 
set  on  their  window-sill. 

They  sought  early  to  discharge  their  duty  to  An- 
agni's  few  historical  reminiscences.  They  fixed  upon 
the  very  stone  in  the  pavement  of  the  dim  old  cathe 
dral  where  fiery  Alexander  stood  to  fulminate  his 
curse  against  the  doughty  Barbarossa  —  an  occur 
rence  which,  I  understand,  is  still  a  matter  of  local 
gossip ;  and  they  were  at  some  pains  to  pay  a  formal 
visit  to  the  obdurate  old  apartment  under  their  own 
roof  in  which  the  hapless  Boniface  —  all  this  is  but 
a  matter  of  yesterday  in  Anagni,  the  last  thing  that 
happened  there — felt  the  full  weight  of  the  Norman 
warrior's  mail-clad  hand.  These  definite  devoirs  to 
pontifical  dignity  were  soon  disposed  of;  but  there 
remained  after,  environing  them  like  a  cloud,  the 
vague,  nebulous  body  of  tradition  that  the  great  his 
torical  families  of  the  town  —  the  "twelve  stars  of 
Anagni"  —  have  left  behind  them.  The  Cavaliere, 
who  was  something  of  a  genealogist,  and  who  knew 
more  of  the  history  of  the  great  medieval  papal 
houses  —  the  Conti,  the  Savelli,  and  so  on  —  than 
there  was  any  real  need  of  knowing,  was  thus  given 
an  opportunity  to  branch  out  in  yet  a  new  direction 
into  the  inexhaustibilities  of  the  peninsula ;  and  when 
in  the  cathedral  of  Anagni  he  stood  beneath  the 
tombs  of  the  Graetani  and  read  the  mosaics  which 


THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  113 

blazon  forth  the  illustrious  alliances  of  their  line,  he 
felt  an  irresistible  impulse  to  add  to  that  long  list  of 
the  great  with  whom  he  was  on  terms  of  an  at  least 
theoretical  familiarity  a  few  members  of  that  lofty 
house  —  a  house  which,  deriving  its  impetus  from  the 
Greek  emperors,  came  in  the  course  of  a  few  centuries 
to  lord  it  over  as  many  counties  and  duchies  and 
principalities  between  Rome  and  Naples  as  might 
almost  make  an  empire  in  themselves.  Before  this 
great  clan,  who  could  dare  and  do,  who  could  will  and 
have,  he  shrank  away  as  a  very  weak,  pitiful,  force 
less  creature.  The  stippling  technique  of  his  own 
day  seemed  immeasurably  poor  and  paltry  compared 
with  the  broad,  free,  sketchy  touch  with  which  these 
men  dashed  off  their  stirring  lives;  and  he  stood 
abashed  before  that  fiery  and  robust  intensity  which, 
so  gloriously  indifferent  to  the  subtilties  of  the  gram 
marian,  the  niceties  of  the  manicure,  and  the  torments 
of  the  supersensitive  self -analyst,  could  fix  its  intent 
upon  some  definite  desire  and  move  forward  unswerv 
ingly  to  its  attainment.  Poor  moderns!  he  sighed, 
who  with  all  our  wishing  never  reached  our  end,  and 
with  all  our  thinking  never  know  what  we  really 
think,  after  all. 

But  why  should  I  seem  to  cite  the  Cavalier-e  him 
self,  as  living  through  other  lives,  and  making  but  a 
thin  blood  by  dieting  on  the  unnutritious  husks  of 
a  dead-and-gone  past,  when  an  example  much  more 
striking  and  complete  comes  so  opportunely  to  hand? 
For  Pensieri-Vani  and  his  friend  had  scarce  passed  a 
week  at  Anagni,  when,  one  morning,  on  emerging 
from  the  great,  cavernous  arches  of  the  gateway 


114          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

which  vestibuled  their  temporary  abode,  they  brushed 
against  a  little  old  gentleman  who  was  just  passing 
in.  Pensieri-Vani  instantly  recognized  the  thin,  flow 
ing  white  locks,  the  long,  threadbare  black  coat,  the 
dim  but  indomitably  enthusiastic  blue  eye,  and  the 
wavering  but  still  manful  old  gait  5  but  he  had  yet  to 
learn  what  had  induced  the  eminent  Gregorianius  — 
the  same  who,  some  time  before,  had  assigned  the  Iron 
Pot  to  the  Etruscans — to  bring  his  eighty  years  into 
this  wild  and  difficult  region.  And  yet,  his  familiarity 
with  this  great  scholar's  previous  career  might  have 
enabled  him,  with  a  few  moments'  thought,  to  reason 
the  matter  out  clearly  enough.  The  venerable  Ger 
man  had,  in  fact,  entered  upon  the  fourth  and  last 
stage  of  his  laborious  and  distinguished  life.  In  his 
youth,  some  sixty  years  before,  he  had  devoted  him 
self — his  learning,  his  hopes,  his  passions,  his  all — 
with  a  mighty  and  a  solemn  oath  to  Italy ;  and  in  this 
allegiance  he  had  never  failed  nor  faltered.  One  of 
the  generation  of  1830,  he  had  enthusiastically  joined 
the  ranks  of  the  Romanticists,  and  he  became  one  of  the 
most  ardent  and  accomplished  medievalists  of  the  day. 
His  position  and  his  fortune— he  enjoyed  but  a  subor 
dinate  post  in  one  of  the  great  universities — did  not 
permit  him,  for  many  years,  a  realization  of  the  de 
lights  of  travel  beyond  the  Alps;  but  he  availed  him 
self,  in  the  mean  while,  of  the  best  substitute  that 
offered  itself:  he  theorized  the  entire  peninsula  with 
the  greatest  zeal  and  ardor,  and  was  perfectly  ac 
quainted  with  the  frescos  at  Assisi  and  the  mosaics 
at  Ravenna  years  before  the  Brenner  diligence  bore 
him  down  into  the  home  of  art. 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANI.          115 

By  this  time  lie  should  have  had  a  wife,  a  hearth 
stone,  a  family  of  children ;  but  he  declared  that  Italy 
should  be  his  home,  his  spouse,  his  domestic  circle, 
and  he  buried  himself  for  years  among  the  medie 
val  memories  of  the  minor  Tuscan  towns.  When  he 
emerged  from  them  at  the  age  of  forty  or  thereabouts 
his  youthful  enthusiasms  were  somewhat  cooled,  and 
an  occasional  silver  thread  among  his  black  locks 
reminded  him  that  he  was  no  longer  young.  He  told 
himself  frankly  that  a  man  of  his  mature  age  could 
no  longer  continue  becomingly  to  dabble  in  the  mere 
affairs  of  yesterday  —  for  what  is  five  hundred  years 
in  the  course  of  time? — and  with  a  sigh  over  some 
lost  illusions  and  some  mistaken  theories  he  closed 
the  volume  of  the  middle  ages  and  determined  to 
devote  himself  for  the  future  to  the  study  of  classical 
antiquity  at  Rome.  It  was  then  that  he  Latinized  his 
cognomen,  and  began  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the 
reputation  for  boundless  erudition  which  during  the 
latter  part  of  his  life  he  undoubtedly  enjoyed.  He 
took  hold  of  the  Forum  at  a  time  when  the  topogra 
phy  of  that  celebrated  though  restricted  tract  was 
a  much  more  vexatious  and  complicated  study  than 
it  is  to-day,  and  in  a  masterly,  a  monumental,  work 
upon  that  deeply  historic  inclosure  he  marked  a  dis 
tinct  era  in  the  study  of  the  Roman  civilization.  But 
not  more  than  a  decade  had  passed  before  the  whole 
of  the  Roman  city  lay  under  his  eye  as  plain  as  a  pike 
staff,  and  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  latter  days 
of  the  Republic  were  as  familiar  as  those  of  his  con 
temporaries;  and  his  mind  began  to  reach  out  for 
something  more  recondite,  more  antique,  more  mys- 


116          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

tic,  more  obscure.  Though  this  was  just  at  about 
the  time  when  the  first  modern  excavations  of  the 
Forum  were  verifying  or  annihilating  the  various 
theories  of  the  past  generation,  he  found  himself  quite 
unable  to  maintain  an  interest  in  a  theme  from  which 
he  had  once  supposed  his  interest  never  could  depart. 
Some  of  his  own  ideas  were  shown  to  be  substantially 
correct,  and  some  altogether  erroneous  j  but  he  took 
very  little  heed  j  he  was  beginning  to  call  himself  an 
old  man,  and  he  confessed  the  need  of  an  interest  in 
accordance  with  his  years.  So  he  surrendered  the 
honorable  and  accustomed  place  which  his  long  resi 
dence  in  Rome  had  given  him,  and  turned  his  plod 
ding  feet  toward  the  vague  and  shadowy  byways  of 
Etruria, —  a  land  whose  mysteries,  though  dense,  are 
not  impenetrable,  and  whose  beginnings,  while  not 
primordial,  appeared  sufficiently  remote.  He  should 
have  been  a  grandfather  now,  with  an  assured  and 
revered  seat  round  which  grandsons  played ;  but  his 
only  "  heimath"  was  the  rough  country  inn  where  dire 
discomfort  reigned  and  where  the  children  of  his 
host  listened  with  eyes  of  amused  wonder  to  his  efforts 
in  a  tongue  which  he  had  never  yet  fully  mastered. 
In  this  obscure  region  he  kept  himself  until  the  chil 
dren  of  these  children  succeeded  to  their  parents'  won 
dering  office  ;  his  aggregation  of  notes  and  plans  and 
diagrams  and  sketches  was  so  voluminous,  so  exhaus 
tive,  as  to  fill  the  cognoscenti  with  an  awe  that  was 
almost  akin  to  pity ;  but  the  grand  work  for  which  all 
this  was  designed  as  mere  material  was  never  under 
taken.  He  now  knew  Etruria  through  and  through ; 
Agylla  held  no  secret  from  him  j  Tarchna  and  Pultuke 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          117 

were  his  familiars.  The  fatal  moment  came  at  last  when 
the  sense  of  the  triviality  that  must  necessarily  per 
meate  the  mere  Knowable  took  full  possession  of  him; 
and  as  he  listlessly  surveyed  the  mass  of  memoranda 
that  witnessed  the  labor  of  a  score  of  years,  it  came 
over  him  that  nothing  short  of  the  Utterly  Unknow 
able  could  seem  an  adequately  dignifying  study  for 
one  so  learned  and  so  old.  In  one  portion  only  of  his 
beloved  peninsula  could  such  a  study  be  found,  and 
he  resolved  to  betake  himself,  while  yet  his  physical 
and  mental  powers  might  serve  him,  to  the  hoary 
cyclopean  towns  among  the  Hernican  hills,  where 
the  venerable  and  the  unintelligible  exist  in  an  ideal 
union. 

He  had  never  been  without  the  power  of  drawing 
young  men  about  him,  and  when  he  took  a  modest 
little  room  in  the  palace  at  Anagni,  his  two  youthful 
fellow-lodgers  promptly  and  enthusiastically  placed 
themselves  at  his  disposal,  and,  after  pretty  largely 
despoiling  their  own  quarters  to  make  his  a  little  less 
uncomfortable,  they  accompanied  him  in  all  the  vari 
ous  excursions  by  which  he  taxed  his  failing  strength. 
They  went  with  him  to  Cori,  which,  from  its  temple- 
crowned  and  triple- walled  hill,  looks  across  the  wide 
reaches  of  the  Pontine  Marshes  toward  Monte  Circello 
and  the  islands  of  the  sea;  they  attended  him  to 
Segni,  where  he  laboriously  measured  the  stones  that 
compose  its  great  cyclopean  gateway,  and  painstak 
ingly  enunciated  to  them  his  theory  of  the  round  arch ; 
and  to  Alatri,  where  he  stalked  exultantly  over  the 
vast  and  towering  walls,  while  his  thin  white  hair 
was  blown  about  by  the  winds  that  sweep  across  the 


118  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

rugged  foot-hills  of  the  Apennines.  They  went  with 
him  even  up  to  Norba,  which,  despite  their  earnest  re 
monstrance,  he  determined  to  reach.  They  dragged 
him  with  infinite  toil  and  care  across  the  glaring 
limestone  steeps  over  which  the  path,  with  precipices 
above  and  below,  takes  its  rough  and  stony  way,  and 
eventually  placed  him,  panting  and  exhausted,  upon 
the  dismantled  bastions  of  that  tremendous  and  im 
memorial  fortress.  Here  the  muse  of  the  prehistoric 
communicated  the  divine  afflatus,  and  when  he  raised 
up  his  drooping  frame  and  stretched  out  his  futile 
old  arm,  and  with  a  kindling  eye  and  a  ringing  voice 
openly  exulted  over  the  wild  grandeur  of  the  prospect 
before  him  and  the  scarce  inferior  grandeur  of  the 
antique  fabric  beneath  him,  our  two  young  friends 
were  inexpressibly  touched  and  uplifted.  But  this 
was  about  the  last  of  his  considerable  excursions.  He 
descended  to  Anagni  in  a  condition  of  physical  and 
mental  exhaustion,  and  henceforth  confined  himself 
almost  altogether  to  the  vicinity  of  that  old  papal 
town,  for  which  he  seemed  to  be  developing  a  very 
tender  affection.  His  companions  had  noticed  at  Cori 
that  he  seemed  hardly  more  interested  in  the  antiqui 
ties  at  the  top  of  the  hill  than  in  the  beautiful  old 
convent  that  nestled  on  its  olive-clad  side;  and,  again, 
that  in  descending  the  rock-cut  stairway  which  leads 
down  from  high-perched  Alatri  he  had  cast  back  more 
than  one  look  of  reluctant  tenderness  at  the  rose  win 
dow  and  the  arched  portals  of  the  gothic  cathedral. 
Nor  had  they  failed  to  observe  how,  on  the  return 
from  Norba,  his  thoughts  had  gone  down  —  whither 
his  feet  dared  not  follow — to  Ninfa,  the  medieval 
Pompeii,  the  walls  of  whose  castle  and  monastery  and 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI  -VANI.          119 

deserted  dwellings  rise  dank  and  ivy-draped  from  the 
pestilent  plain  of  the  Paludi  Pontini.  And  when, 
after  a  few  days'  rest,  he  became  in  some  degree  re 
stored  and  began  to  wander  feebly  and  musingly 
among  Anagni's  quaint  streets  and  piazze,  caressing 
with  a  tender  eye  the  picturesque  architectural  frag 
ments  that  meet  one  at  every  turn, —  the  sculptured 
lions  and  griffins,  the  open  loggias,  the  outside  stair 
cases,  the  trefoiled  windows,  the  great  arched  door 
ways, — when  '  he  took  to  wandering  abstractedly 
through  the  stony  corridors  of  the  palace  and  to 
sitting  solitary  in  the  dusky  aisles  of  the  cathedral, 
his  companions  felt  that  nothing  merely  Cyclopean 
could  have  much  further  interest  for  him, —  that  in 
his  last  days  he  was  returning  to  the  cherished  medie 
valism  of  his  first.  It  was  not  long  before  he  humored 
them  by  accepting  a  kind  of  rude  couch  which  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  found  in  a  remote  chamber  and  placed 
beside  his  wide  and  high-placed  window.  Here  he 
would  lie  quietly  and  contentedly  by  the  hour,  lan 
guidly  watching  the  mountain-sweep  of  the  clouds, 
and  murmuring  to  himself  of  many  a  far-off  time  and 
many  a  bygone  name ;  and  here  within  a  month  or 
so  he  died.  The  lonely  death-bed  of  this  abstracted 
alien  was  not  without  its  effect  upon  the  Cavaliere, 
who,  confronted  with  this  picture  of  his  own  possible 
end,  seriously  contemplated,  for  a  few  weeks,  a  change 
in  his  life  that  would  bring  it  more  into  accord  with 
those  around  him.  When  I  met  him  two  or  three 
years  later,  however,  at  Palermo,  he  seemed  to  have 
wholly  slipped  back  into  his  old  ways  and  to  have 
become  too  confirmed  and  too  inveterate  a  "  looker- 
on  "  to  justify  any  great  hope  of  his  conversion. 


IX 


AROUND  ROME:    THE  MOTH  AND  THE  CANDLE 


HE  venerable  Gregorianius, 
during  those  last  days  at 
Anagni,  had  consigned  to  Pen- 
sieri  -Vani's  care  the  volumin 
ous  record  of  his  artistic 
career  in  Italy.  This  he  did, 
hardly  more  from  the  peculiar 
isolation  of  his  geographical  posi 
tion,  than  from  the  scarce  greater  isolation  that 
marked  his  social  environment.  The  ultimate  dis 
posal  and  possession  of  his  great  mass  of  raw 
material  he  fixed  with  an  admirable  clearness,  but 
its  present  care  and  the  task  of  supplying  some 
minor  deficiencies  he  relegated  to  the  young  man 
whom,  with  a  kind  of  affectionate  playfulness, 
he  came  to  call  his  grandson.  But  one  consider 
ation  disturbed  the  placidity  of  his  last  days;  in 
reviewing  this  great  omnium  gatherum,  at  once  his 
life-labor  and  his  monument,  he  could  not  blind  him 
self  to  the  existence  of  one  great  hiatus  in  the  pro 
gression  of  what  would  otherwise  be  an  almost 
complete  presentation  of  the  history  of  the  Italian 

120 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          121 

civilizations;  and,  before  his  vast  tomes  should  be  sent 
over  the  Alps  to  find  a  permanent  lodging,  he  desired 
that  his  hiatus  might  be  filled.  He  had  done  justice 
to  the  Lombard  republics,  to  Latium  and  Magna 
GraBcia,  to  the  Etruscan  and  Pelasgic  towns;  but  to 
the  unique  period  of  Narses  and  Theodoric  and  Galla 
Placidia  he  had  never  given,  as  he  now  keenly  felt, 
due  attention.  It  was  his  request,  therefore,  that 
Pensieri-Vani  repair  to  Ravenna,  and  there,  in  some 
degree  at  least,  fill  the  only  considerable  blank  of 
which  his  history  could  accuse  him. 

The  Cavaliere  very  gladly  acceded  to  this  request, 
but  an  immediate  compliance  he  could  not  bring  him 
self  to  make.  On  leaving  Anagni  he  was  unable  to 
deny  himself  that  short  sojourn  in  Rome  which  his 
vicinity  to  it  seemed  to  invite,  and  his  visit  to  Ra 
venna  he  set  some  months  ahead.  Besides,  as  he 
argued  properly  enough,  such  an  undertaking  required 
some  preliminary  study,  and  Rome,  aside  from  Ra 
venna  itself,  was  the  only  place  where  such  a  study 
could  advantageously  be  made.  He  would  justify  his 
Roman  stay  by  some  attention  to  the  mosaics  of  Santa 
Prassede  and  San  Damiano,  freshen  his  acquaintance 
with  Belisarius  and  Justinian  and  S.  Apollinare,  and 
betake  himself  to  the  Exarchate  in  the  spring. 

He  did  not  take  up  his  residence  in  Rome  itself,  but 
found  quarters — or  perhaps  I  should  say,  made  them 
— in  a  certain  dilapidated  old  villa  on  a  hillside  a 
mile  or  two  outside  the  walls.  This  villa  belonged  to 
a  once  exalted  family  from  the  south,  whose  present 
fall  in  fortune  was  amply  figured  by  the  neglect  and 
decay  into  which  their  possessions  had  been  allowed 


122          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEBI -VANI. 

to  lapse.  Its  high-ceiled  apartments,  arabesqued  after 
the  dainty  and  graceful  manner  of  the  Renaissance, 
were  already  in  part  insufficiently  tenanted  by  a 
peasant  colony  that  extracted  an  uncertain  livelihood 
from  the  reluctant  hillside;  its  cavernous  basement, 
supporting  a  broad-arched  facade  whose  noble  con 
tours  acknowledged  the  hand  of  a  great  master,  sub 
mitted  to  the  huddling  of  carts  and  the  lowing  of 
cattle;  and  the  once  stately  garden  smiled  ruefully 
through  its  crumbling  statues  and  choked-up  foun 
tain-basins.  But  the  Cavaliere,  who  never  failed  to 
get  on  admirably  with  the  Italian  contadino,  and  who 
invariably  placed  the  picturesque  before  the  merely 
comfortable,  considered  himself  very  satisfactorily 
situated;  arid  when  he  had  brightened  up  the  dingi- 
ness  of  his  frescoed  bed-chamber  with  a  few  contem 
poraneous  trifles  and  had  exacted  a  promise  from  his 
co-tenants  that  the  excursions  of  their  poultry  should 
be  somewhat  curtailed, — one  presumptuous  black  hen, 
in  particular,  ignored  all  metes  and  bounds, — he  felt 
himself  established  and  at  home. 

He  did  not  consider  himself  "at  home"  in  the  sense 
which  society  attaches  tp  that  phrase,  however,  and 
the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  he  expected  was  a 
visitor;  but  a  week  had  scarcely  passed  in  his  new 
abode  before  visitors  came.  For,  as  he  was  standing 
early  one  forenoon  at  his  window  he  noted  a  carriage 
waiting  below  on  the  highway,  and  presently  he  dis 
tinguished  a  party  of  three  persons  toiling  up  through 
the  two  hundred  yards  or  so  of  roadless  orchard  that 
cut  the  villa  off  from  the  outside  world.  The  first 
person  that  he  made  out  was  the  young  Mr.  Occident 


THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          123 

whom  he  had  met  once  or  twice  at  Pisa,  the  second 
was  the  Countess  Nullaniuna,  and  in  the  third  he  was 
surprised  to  find  none  other  than  the  Prorege  of  Ar- 
copia  himself.  He  knew,  of  course,  that  the  Prorege 
was  in  Italy,  but  he  knew  equally  well  the  reasons 
which  had  operated  to  keep  his  august  friend  at  a 
distance  from  the  capital  itself.  So  when  the  Pro 
rege  hastened  to  make  an  elaborately  off-hand  intima 
tion  of  his  desire  to  take  advantage  of  being  on  the 
mainland  to  show  his  young  companion  certain  notable 
things  in  the  vicinity  of  Rome  which  he  had  hitherto 
overlooked,  and  then  added,  with  a  studied  careless 
ness,  that  he  was  spending  a  week  strictly  incognito 
at  one  of  the  villas  above  Frascati,  the  Cavaliere  in 
stantly  perceived  the  whole  situation:  the  Prorege 
could  not  keep  away  from  Rome,  he  would  not  venture 
within  it  (there  was  no  room  in  the  Roman  firma 
ment  for  the  sun  and  the  moon,  too),  and  his  pathetic 
flutterings  around  its  outskirts  must  by  no  means  be 
made  a  matter  of  public  knowledge.  The  Contessa's 
accounting  for  herself  was  much  more  direct,  and  done 
wholly  by  herself.  By  a  singular  coincidence  she, 
also,  was  sojourning  at  Frascati,  and  having,  a  day 
or  two  back,  climbed  up  to  Tusculum  along  with  her 
present  companions,  she  had  determined,  while  stand 
ing  on  those  breezy  heights,  that  the  little  Roman 
theater  nestling  there  must  again  come  into  use.  Her 
mind  was  firmly  set  on  a  sort  of  classic  fete  champetre 
which  should  be  adapted  in  the  proper  degree  to  the 
place;  there  should  be  music  and  declamation,  and 
such  other  features  of  ancient  days  as  the  modern 
arts  could  emulate,  and  the  Cavaliere  was  prayed  to 


124          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

assist.  She  entered  more  into  the  details  of  her  plan 
as  the  party  made  the  rounds  of  the  villa.  The  rus 
ticity  of  his  menage  opened  her  eyes  to  a  surprising 
extent  for  one  apparently  so  strongly  bent  on  the  re 
turn  to  nature,  and  impelled  by  yearnings  for  the 
great  god  Pan;  but  the  Prorege  was  immensely  di 
verted,  and  as  he  picked  his  way  bravely  through  the 
stable  (which  was  just  under  the  appartamento  nobile) 
he  laughingly  complimented  the  Cavaliere  upon  the 
originality  of  his  taste.  Occident  could  not  emulate 
in  this  direction  the  temerity  of  his  patron,  but  he 
lost  his  heart  at  once  to  the  ruinous  garden -terrace, 
and  mournfully  avowed  that  the  Cavaliere's  distance 
from  Shelbyville  could  never  be  expressed  in  mere 
miles  alone.  Might  he  ever  expect  to  see  the  like 
in  the  home  of  his  childhood?  Alas,  three  centuries 
were  none  too  few  to  bring  it  about,  even  after  a  be 
ginning  were  made,  and  Shelby  County,  he  keenly 
felt,  might  take  much  more  than  three  for  even  that! 
The  Contessa  recovered  her 'tone  in  the  great  salone, 
and  frankly  confessed  that  the  Cavaliere's  stuccoed 
arabesques  were  quite  as  good  as  her  ilex-grove  and 
her  stone-pines  up  at  Frascati.  Quite  as  good,  that 
was,  for  general  purposes ;  but  not  quite  so  good  — 
she  was  making,  just  then,  something  of  a  detour  to 
avoid  the  black  hen  —  as  a  promenade  for  poultry. 
The  Cavaliere  laughed,  and  asked  her  to  accept  the 
poultry  as  a  part  of  the  entertainment ;  and  the  Con 
tessa  laughed  back,  and  asked  to  be  assured  that  she 
could  consider  him  a  part  of  her  entertainment.  The 
Cavaliere  gave  her  a  courteous  assurance  that  she 
might,  but  he  knew  well  enough  who  the  central  figure 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          125 

of  the  occasion  was  to  be,  and  he  cautioned  her  not  to 
expect  too  much.  And  there  was  one  thing  more  she 
must  not  expect,  the  Prorege  interjected:  his  presence. 
The  Contessa  had  seemed  to  imply  on  one  occasion 
that  the  Tusculan  diversions  were  to  be  in  his  honor, 
but  he  was  too  clever  to  suppose  that, —  knowing,  as 
well  as  Pensieri'-Vani  did,  whose  honor  was  chiefly 
considered,  though  much  too  politic  to  let  her  suppose 
that  he  knew  it  was  not  his ;  and  he  explained  to  the 
protesting  lady  that  twenty  people  would  recognize 
him ;  that  on  such  an  occasion  Frascati,  for  all  practical 
purposes,  was  Rome ;  and  added,  that  while  he  would 
not  deprive  his  young  friend  of  so  characteristic  an 
entertainment,  he  himself  should  spend  the  day  at 
Ostia.  To  all  her  prayers  that  he,  too,  would  honor 
the  entertainment  at  Tusculum  he  was  unyielding 
quite  (for  he  feared  that  in  even  his  present  vicinity 
to  Rome  he  might  have  singed  his  wings) ;  but  in  the 
matter  of  Ostia  he  compromised  by  postponing  his 
excursion  until  they  could  make  a  party  and  go  out 
there  together. 

Of  the  Contessa's  fete  I  can  give  but  the  scantiest 
notes.  The  only  looker-on  was  a  wild-eyed  shepherd 
who  scowled  down  upon  the  festivities  from  the 
height  of  the  ruin-strewn  arx,  where  he  was  pastur 
ing  his  flock,  and  who,  for  the  first  time  within  his 
memory,  saw  the  familiar  little  semicircular  tiers  of 
lichen-covered  steps  occupied  other  than  by  the  rust 
ling  of  the  lizard  and  the  nodding  of  the  wild  flowers. 
Over  these  steps  a  company  of  twenty  or  thirty  per 
sons  now  disposed  themselves,  while  three  or  four 
gaily  dressed  young  people,  who  wore  knots  of  ribbon 


126          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENS1EEI-VANI. 

and  carried  gilded  crooks,  moved  brightly  through  a 
little  scene,  the  others,  meanwhile,  gently  clapping 
their  hands  or  nodding  their  heads  in  approval.  Then 
a  lady  rose  and  sang  a  song  which  he  was  sure  he  had 
once  heard  in  Rome,  when  he  had  gone  there  four  or 
five  years  ago  5  a  young  gentleman,  seated  carelessly 
upon  a  broken  capital,  played  on  a  violin  a  very  brief 
and  simple  little  air  ;  a  middle-aged  one,  in  spectacles, 
stood  out  and  read  a  short  address  full  of  rhyme  and 
rhythm; — almost  every  one  did  something,  except 
one  light-haired  young  man  who  seemed  incapable  of 
doing  any  more  than  enjoying  what  the  others  con 
tributed.  And,  last  of  all,  a  lady  who  wore  her  hair 
under  a  triple  band,  and  had  draped  her  figure  in  a 
long  white  robe  with  a  golden  border,  came  forward 
through  great  applause,  and,  taking  her  place  upon 
the  little  stone  platform  which  faced  the  seats,  began 
to  declaim  in  a  kind  of  chanting  voice.  Her  voice 
would  rise  and  fall  and  rise  again,  and  her  arms 
moved  in  graceful  gestures,  and  little  cries  of  ad 
miration  went  up  from  the  circle  before  her.  Her 
tones  became  more  and  more  impassioned  and  her 
body  swayed  more  freely  to  and  fro,  and  the  bursts 
of  applause  became  more  numerous  and  more  enthu 
siastic.  And  finally  there  was  one  great  outburst  of 
plaudits,  and  the  lady  seemed  to  fall  against  a  broken 
column  that  stood  close  by,  and  three  or  four  of  her 
hearers  ran  to  her  side  and  lifted  her  up,  and  two 
gentlemen  advanced  and  placed  a  kind  of  wreath 
upon  her  head,  which  she  attempted  to  decline  but 
was  finally  induced  to  wear ;  and  everybody  cried  out 
"  Evviva  the  New  Corinne  !"  and  came  flocking  about 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.  127 

her;  and  the  lady  seemed  very  happy  and  gracious, 
but  not  as  if  receiving  any  more  than  her  just  due. 
And  then  some  baskets  were  brought  out,  and  cloths 
were  laid  on  the  grass  and  over  the  mossy  steps,  and 
fruits  and  cake  were  spread  out  upon  them,  and  long- 
necked  bottles  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and  healths 
were  drunk;  and  then  the  gay  throng  sang  a  parting 
song  and  passed  away  slowly  down  the  hillside. 

But  as  regards  the  Prorege's  excursion  to  Ostia  I 
am  able  to  give  a  more  extended  account;  and  inas 
much  as  his  experiences  there  gave  rise  to  any  number 
of  biting  little  pleasantries  throughout  the  capital, 
perhaps  your  fund  of  interest  may  last  through  a 
recital  more  detailed  than  that  of  the  Contessa's  Tus- 
culan  fete.  They  were  a  party  of  five,  and  it  was 
arranged  that  Occident  should  sit  with  the  coachman 
on  the  way  out  and  Pensieri-Vani  on  the  way  back. 
The  fifth  member  was  a  lady — for  the  Contessa,  de 
spite  her  advanced  and  constantly  advancing  views, 
did  not  care  to  figure  as  the  only  female  in  the  party 
of  men ;  and  this  friend  she  presented  to  Pensieri- 
Vani  (with  some  disregard  of  etiquette,  at  least ;  but 
she  was  determined  to  disregard  something)  as  a 
peculiarly  acceptable  associate — one  of  the  Altissimi 
princesses,  in  fact,  whom  the  Cavaliere  had  met  some 
years  back  at  Orvieto;  since  wedded  and  widowed, 
and  long  the  Contessa's  closest  intimate.  The  Princess 
was  a  somber  beauty  of  a  grave  and  chastened  de 
meanor,  and  the  Contessa,  who  was  fully  as  flighty 
and  capricious  and  thedtrale  as  a  woman  of  semi- 
genius  usually  finds  it  necessary  to  be,  posed  and  fid 
geted  upon  this  dark  background  to  her  heart's  con- 


128          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

tent.  Her  cue  this  morning  seemed  to  be  that  of 
genius-blasted  fragility  —  that  burst  of  impassioned 
improvisation  on  the  previous  day  had  left  her  so 
sadly  nerveless  and  shattered;  and  with  an  air  of 
pleading  artlessness  she  hung  upon  the  amused  Pro 
rege,  stimulating  in  a  hundred  wily  ways  his  interest 
in  her  fete  and  in  her  own  performance.  But  when 
the  Prorege,  who  was  past-master  of  the  art  of  self- 
defense  against  womankind,  would  cunningly  balk 
and  tantalize  her  with  a  finesse  quite  equal  to  her 
own,  she  could  not  restrain  herself  from  shooting  out 
a  covert  glance  of  such  an  enigmatical  character  that, 
had  the  complacent  Prince  caught  it,  he  might  well 
have  doubted  the  final  adequacy  of  his  defense.  Her 
eyes  sparkled  with  a  malicious  mischievousness,  and 
her  whole  manner,  as  the  Prorege  saw  it  in  the  light 
of  subsequent  developments,  seemed  to  foreshadow 
a  delicate  and  ingenious  revenge  —  to  place  him  in 
the  misprised  ranks  of  the  duped  and  the  victimized. 
Their  reception  at  the  inn,  which  forms  the  nucleus 
of  the  handful  of  habitations  that  go  to  make  up  the 
modern  town  of  Ostia,  certainly  betrayed  the  work 
ings  of  some  occult  influence:  Pensieri-Vani  had 
meagerly  lunched  there  some  years  before  on  an  omelet 
with  a  bit  of  rye  bread  and  cheese,  when  the  atten 
tion  of  the  landlord  had  not  gone  to  the  length  of 
disturbing  the  brace  of  gaunt  hounds  whose  eyes 
mutely  devoured  these  frugal  viands,  or  of  expelling 
the  flock  of  fowls  that  clucked  and  fluttered  over  the 
chance  falling  of  a  crumb ;  and  now  the  present  sense 
of  order,  of  attentiveness,  of  accomplished  expectancy 
seemed  to  quite  transform  the  place.  Assuredly  no 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.          129 

such  refreshment  could  have  been  set  forth,  no  such 
decorum  preserved,  no  such  excess  of  courtesy  dis 
played  had  not  the  coming  and  the  quality  of  the 
guests  been  previously  known.  And  the  character 
of  their  reception  in  no  degree  deteriorated  when  they 
left  the  inn,  and,  previous  to  advancing  toward  the 
recognized  lions  of  the  place,  looked  into  the  church 
close  by.  The  Princess,  who  for  a  number  of  years 
had  performed  her  devotions  almost  exclusively 
amidst  the  ornate  worldliness  of  San  Carlo  al  Corso, 
was  desirous  of  seeing  what  this  lonely  and  humble 
little  temple  was  like ;  and  the  whole  party,  having 
plenty  of  time  on  their  hands,  abetted  her  in  her 
novel  way  of  taking  hold  of  Ostia.  They  were  met 
on  the  threshold  by  the  single  priest  in  charge,  a  dark 
and  sallow  young  man  of  peasant  extraction,  whose 
lonely  battle  with  midsummer's  malaria  had  left  him 
wholly  gaunt  and  enervate.  He  saluted  them  with 
the  deference  which  the  church  sometimes  shows  to 
the  world,  though  he  was  too  true  an  Italian  to  be 
awed,  or  even  embarrassed,  by  their  rank ;  and  he 
brightened  up  into  something  almost  like  eagerness 
as  he  offered  to  do  the  honors  of  his  charge.  The 
Prorege  indulgently  praised  the  wretched  frescos 
which  he  exhibited  so  proudly,  and  the  Contessa 
called  up  a  nickering  smile  of  pleasure  in  his  emaci 
ated  face  as  she  feigned  an  enthusiasm  for  the  paltry 
fripperies  of  the  high  altar.  This  appreciative  inter 
est  emboldened  him  to  suggest  their  ascent  to  the 
gallery,  where,  from  his  manner,  the  great  treasure  of 
the  church  was  to  be  revealed.  The  great  treasure 
was  a  small  cabinet  organ,  and  Occident  —  triumph- 


130          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

ing  in  the  ubiquity  of  the  Western  genius,  yet 
somewhat  taken  aback  by  a  new  illustration  of  the 
incongruities  it  sometimes  precipitated  —  read  upon 
it  a  name  familiar  to  his  earliest  years.  The  priest,  who 
evidently  conceived  it  an  impossibility  for  his  beloved 
instrument  to  be  guilty  of  a  discord  of  any  kind  what 
ever,  pleaded  with  a  mute  but  unmistakable  pathos 
that  its  long  silence  might  now  be  ended ;  and  the 
Princess,  motioning  Pensieri-Vani  to  the  keyboard, 
sang  this  poor  solitary  a  churchly  little  air  with  such 
a  noble  seriousness  and  such  a  gracious  simplicity  as 
to  move  not  only  him  but  all  the  others  too.  Occi 
dent,  in  particular,  who  kept  within  him  quite  unim 
paired  his  full  share  of  that  fund  of  sensibility  which 
is  one  of  the  best  products  of  Shelby  County,  and 
who  would  have  given  half  his  millions  just  then  to 
have  been  able  to  sit  down  and  play  the  simplest  tune, 
implored  Pensieri-Vani  in  looks,  if  not  in  words,  to 
do  for  him  what  he  himself  was  so  powerless  to  com 
pass  ;  and  the  Cavaliere,  'who,  like  a  good  and  true 
musician,  preferred  support  from  the  lowest  quarter 
to  indifference  in  the  highest,  kept  his  place  until  their 
poor  host,  charmed,  warmed  through  and  through, 
attached  again  to  the  great  body  of  humanity,  could 
scarcely  trust  himself  to  voice  his  thanks.  But  the 
Princess  whispered  in  the  Cavaliere's  ear,  as  his  series 
of  plain  and  simple  little  tunes  came  to  an  end,  that 
he  had  not  lost  since  she  last  heard  him.  As  for  their 
beneficiary,  to  repay  this  kindness  there  was  but  one 
thing  left  that  he  could  do  ;  they  had  exhausted  the 
church  itself,  but  the  bishop's  residence  close  at 
hand  —  the  bishop  himself  was  installed  at  non-mala- 


THE   CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANL          131 

rial  Velletri,  in  the  Monti  Albani  —  should  discharge 
the  debt.  So  the  Prorege  and  his  companions,  who 
(except  the  Contessa)  had  lost  all  thoughts  of  Roman 
Ostia,  filed  slowly  through  the  various  apartments  of 
the  episcopal  palace, —  large,  empty  rooms  with  as 
ceticism  stamped  on  their  tile  flooring,  and  self-denial 
woven  into  the  scant  folds  of  the  chintz  furniture-cov 
erings  ;  the  young  father's  fervor  even  led  them  to  an 
inspection  of  the  episcopal  kitchen,  where  long  rows 
of  copper  pans  and  kettles  hung  in  bright-scoured 
idleness  upon  the  walls.  The  Prorege,  who  was 
finding  housekeeping  much  more  interesting  than 
archaeology  was  likely  to  be,  and  who  passed  these 
sacerdotal  privacies  in  review  with  a  considerate 
sobriety  that  was  perfect  of  its  kind,  would  willingly 
have  lingered  on  for  even  more  intimate  revelations  ; 
but  their  guide  himself  appeared  all  at  once  to  become 
conscious  that  he  was  taking  their  time  from  other 
things,  and  abruptly  brought  his  entertainment  to  an 
end, —  begging  indulgence  for  having  detained  them 
so  long,  and  hoping,  with  a  certain  air,  that  their  af 
ternoon  might  be  as  fruitful  and  enjoyable  as  possible. 
It  was  an  air  that  clearly  brought  the  unconscious 
Prorege  within  the  shadow  of  the  shortly-to-happen. 
There  is  at  Ostia  a  little  foot-path  that  takes  its  way, 
through  mazes  of  flowering  thickets  and  of  nameless 
scraps  of  crumbling  ruin,  close  along  the  low  bank  of 
the  Tiber,  where  little  is  in  sight  but  the  stone  pines 
of  Castel  Fusano,  the  distantly  blue  outlines  of  the 
Alban  Hills,  the  few  spare  masts  of  Fmmicino's  ship 
ping,  and  the  big  round  machicolated  tower  of  Ostia's 
own  castle;  while  nothing  is  in  sound  but  the  rustling 


132          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

shrubs  and  the  smoothly  swirling  waves  that  lap 
unceasingly  the  ruins  of  ancient  greatness.  In  this 
retired  spot  the  messenger  of  the  shortly-to-happen 
made  his  appearance.  He  took  the  guise  of  a  kind  of 
upper  workman,  whose  dress  and  person  bore  evi 
dence  of  recent  labor,  and  whose  manner,  despite  its 
excessive  deference,  betrayed  an  agitation  and  a  sort 
of  breathless  responsibility  for  which  no  adequate 
cause  appeared  in  view.  He  craved  pardon  for  not 
having  found  his  Excellency  sooner  (the  Prorege's  stare 
of  astonishment  at  this  unexpected  recognition  of 
his  quality  won  from  the  Contessa  a  smile  of  derisive 
triumph);  the  excavation,  he  announced,  was  now 
well  under  way  and  promised  to  exceed  in  value  and 
interest  anything  of  recent  years ;  and  he  hoped  it 
would  be  their  pleasure  to  allow  him  to  conduct  them 
to  the  spot  at  once. 

The  slightly  dismayed  Prorege  and  his  somewhat 
surprised  companions,  who  now  perceived  that  their 
visit  was  to  be  recognized,  by  very  marked  and  excep 
tional  attentions,  followed  their  guide  across  a  field 
bristling  with  thistles  and  littered  with  broken  bricks 
to  a  remote  spot,  where  a  group  of  expectant  work 
men  and  two  or  three  mounds  of  fresh-dug  earth  in 
dicated  the  day's  activities.  The  excavations  were  in 
that  delightful  state  when  a  moment  more  might  re 
veal  and  determine  anything.  A  few  coins  and  utensils, 
carefully  set  to  one  side,  were  shown  the  new  arrivals, 
and  the  head  workman  was  hoping  for  a  villa,  at  least; 
while  the  intendarit  himself,  who  presently  appeared, 
hot  and  breathless,  from  quite  a  different  direction, 
was  looking  for  nothing  less  than  a  temple.  The  un- 


THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          133 

settled  Prorege,  now  a  prey  to  all  manner  of  doubts 
and  fears  and  suspicions,  hailed  with  relief  the  advent 
of  some  one  who  could  speak  with  authority,  and  re 
quested  that  he  might  be  told  at  once  to  whom  he  was 
indebted  for  this  great  surprise,  and  the  Contessa, 
whose  Tusculan  entertainment  the  prince  had  dared 
to  slight,  could  hardly  conceal  her  exultation  when 
the  intendant  announced  that  the  excavations  had 
been  undertaken  by  express  command  of  the  King 
himself. 

The  King !  All  was  known,  then ;  and  when  the 
intendant  went  on  to  say  how  his  Majesty  had  taken 
this  means  of  showing  his  deep  regard  for  the  viceroy 
of  his  Arcopian  province,  the  Contessa  laughed  aloud. 
For  the  Prorege's  face,  schooled  as  it  was  in  all  the 
arts  of  simulation  and  dissimulation,  betrayed  with 
perfect  clearness  the  tumult  within  him.  I  shall  not 
claim  that  he  was  torn  by  a  thousand  conflicting  emo 
tions  ;  half  a  dozen  made  as  violent  a  complication  as 
he  was  able  to  endure.  He  was  pleased  and  enraged 
and  flattered  and  indignant  and  suspicious ;  but  before 
and  above  all  he  was  deeply  mortified.  He  could  not 
deny  the  graciousness  of  the  royal  decree;  but  he 
tormented  himself,  now  with  the  thought  that  some 
unsuspected  carelessness  of  his  own  might  have  be 
trayed  him,  now  with  the  belief  that  some  deep  and 
hideous  treachery  had  revealed  his  vicinity  to  Rome  j 
and  the  thought  that  his  undignified  skulkings  about 
the  capital  (during  a  week  which  he  had  designed 
should  never  be  strictly  accounted  for  in  the  Arcopian 
annals)  might  even  now  be  a  story  on  the  common 
tongue,  filled  him  with  a  shame  too  deep  for  words. 


134          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI-VANI. 

One  thing,  however,  he  could  yet  do.  He  had  still 
an  opportunity  to  redeem  himself,  and  he  would  take 
advantage  of  it.  He  would  boldly  and  frankly  enter 
the  capital  and  pay  his  devoirs  at  the  Quirinale,  quite 
as  if  nothing  had  happened.  The  moth,  having  flown 
into  the  flame,  must  now  perforce  fly  through  it.  The 
King,  it  is  said,  was  disposed  to  receive  his  lieutenant 
with  a  quizzical  good  humor ;  but  the  Prorege,  who, 
when  cornered,  could  assume  a  degree  of  dignity 
which  even  royalty  would  not  venture  to  violate, 
passed  through  the  ordeal  with  an  unimpaired  self- 
respect.  And  whatever  gibes  were  indulged  in  at  his 
expense  by  a  witty  and  sarcastic  city  were  vitiated,  so 
far  as  he  himself  was  concerned,  by  his  immediate 
departure  for  the  north  and  his  present  return  to 
Arcopia. 


RAVENNA:  A  "HUMAN  INTEREST' 


at 


Contessa's    conscience, 
the  close  of  her  little 


exploit,  remained  perfectly  tran 
quil.  She  knew  that  she  had  oc 
casioned  her  host  some  slight 
embarrassment,  but  she  felt  that 
the  interest  which  her  wire 
pulling  had  added  to  the  excursion 
gave  full  compensation  for  any  dis 
agreeable  emotion  that  may  have  stirred 
the  viceregal  breast.  She  herself  carried 
away  from  Ostia  an  antique  golden  bracelet  as  a  sou 
venir  of  the  visit,  and  the  possession  of  so  unmistak 
able  a  token  of  the  success  of  their  excursion  quite 
blinded  her  to  the  fact  that  the  day  might  have  had 
its  drawbacks  for  any  of  her  companions.  The  duped 
Prorege  did  not  learn  positively  of  her  double-deal 
ing  (whatever  his  suspicions)  until  months  afterward, 
when  the  last  trace  of  rancor  had  left  his  heart ;  but 
even  then  he  felt  that  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  esprit 
demanded  his  visiting  upon  his  betrayer  a  revenge  as 
dexterous  and  clever  as  her  own  ingenious  offense 

10  135 


136          THE   CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

seemed  to  call  for.  Circumstances,  after  some  delay, 
gave  him  an  opportunity;  he  was  enabled  to  wound 
the  Contessa's  vanity  in  its  tenderest  point,  and  to 
seriously  cloud  that  reputation  for  cleverness  which 
she  had  so  long  and  so  sedulously  nursed. 

But  our  present  concern  is  rather  with  Pensieri- 
Vani,  who  now  redeemed  his  promise,  given  at  An- 
agni,  by  making  a  visit  to  Ravenna.  Ravenna,  which 
is  to  Pisa  as  the  dead  to  the  sleeping,  was  not  a 
town  that  the  Cavaliere  would  have  chosen  even  for 
a  temporary  residence,  and  its  reception  of  him  (not 
merely  chill,  but  almost  clammy)  decided  that  his  stay 
there  was  not  to  overrun  the  necessary  by  a  single 
day.  He  found  Ravenna  huddled  together  in  the 
midst  of  her  wide  and  empty  plain,  cowering  under 
the  threatenings  of  a  cold  and  leaden  sky,  and  shiver 
ing  at  the  touch  of  the  raw  and  gusty  winds  that 
swept  through  her  empty  and  lifeless  streets ;  and  he 
entered  at  once  upon  that  series  of  forlorn  and  be 
numbing  sessions  in  sepulchral  churches  which  a 
month  of  study  in  the  town  of  Honorius  and  Valen- 
tinian  implies :  a  term  of  chasmal  intimacy  with  un 
couth  mosaicked  saints,  whose  grim  and  awful  aspect 
fascinates  to  repel,  or  repels  to  fascinate ;  a  petrified 
phantasmagoria  of  long-cold  altars,  of  marbled  epis 
copal  thrones,  of  palmed  and  peacocked  sarcophagi, 
all  intershot  with  such  near  and  heart- warming  con 
siderations  as  Byzantine  politics  and  Ostrogothic  her 
esy.  But  the  Cavaliere  pursued  his  duty  daily,  though 
he  felt  his  blood  congealing  and  his  heart  growing 
cold  within  him. 

A  little  social  diversion  would  have  made  all  the 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.          137 

difference  in  the  world;  but  there  is  no  society  in  Ra 
venna,  and  the  Cavaliere,  who  had  an  acquaintance 
in  most  of  the  other  north-Italian  towns,  was  all  but 
a  stranger  here.  He  knew  one  family,  it  is  true;  but 
his  visits  to  the  Caduti  were  more  a  pain  than  a  plea 
sure.  He  fully  perceived  the  emptiness  of  their  present 
and  the  hopelessness  of  their  future ;  and  the  pinched 
form  of  blue-skinned  want  which  showed  out  through 
the  garment  of  simulated  prosperity  with  which  they 
endeavored  to  cloak  their  life  of  privation,  and  even  of 
suffering,  struck  him  with  a  chill  more  deadly  than  any 
that  Ravenna's  dank  baptisteries  or  darkling  crypts 
gave  forth.  Outside  this  circle  of  impoverished  no 
bility  Pensieri  -Vani  knew  but  one  person  in  the  entire 
town.  The  Duke  of  Avon  and  Severn  (who  was  a  law 
unto  himself,  and  who  had  elected  to  take  up  his  resi 
dence  in  the  Romagna)  was  quite  the  reverse  of  im 
poverished;  and  our  friend,  if  he  had  extended  his 
visit  to  that  quarter,  would  have  run  little  risk  of 
being  distressed  by  the  spectacle  of  pride  struggling 
to  conceal  the  end  of  its  long,  slow,  and  cruel  lapse 
from  affluence.  But  the  two  were  by  no  means  on 
the  best  of  terms;  any  exchange  of  civilities  between 
them  was,  in  fact,  quite  out  of  the  question.  Avon, 
who  was  old  enough  to  have  known  better  (his  age 
was  about  that  of  the  Prorege,  or  a  little  more),  had 
taken  the  Cavaliere's  course  at  Pisa,  concerning  the 
Sodoma,  as  a  personal  affront ;  and  the  Cavaliere  had 
not  been  able  to  forbear  his  jest  at  the  lumbering  no 
ble  who  had  arrived  on  the  scene  twenty -four  hours 
too  late.  Avon  had  in  turn  met  Pensieri -Vani  with 
a  massive  and  elaborate  disdain  (for  if  an  English 


138          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

baronet  can  disparage  the  most  noble  and  historic  of 
Italian  families,  who  shall  sound  the  depths  of  scorn 
under  which  an  English  duke  may  bury  a  simple 
cavaliere  whose  title  is  but  recent  and  honorary?), 
and  the  young  man  felt  that  the  account  was  by  no 
means  closed  yet.  But  the  account  remained  open 
at  Ravenna,  and  Avon  meanwhile  moved  un vexed 
along  the  course  which  he  had  marked  out.  He  had 
taken  up  his  quarters  in  an  old  palace  of  which  the 
Caduti  in  their  better  days  had  been  the  owners,  and 
he  was  amusing  himself  (while  prosecuting  some  object 
which  nobody  quite  understood)  by  a  life  of  ostenta 
tiously  picturesque  philanthropy  which,  while  it  made 
his  name  one  to  conjure  with  long  after  among 
the  crowded  ranks  of  Ravennate  famished  poverini, 
planted  daily  daggers  in  scores  of  hearts  as  noble 
as  his  own  —  and  much  more  sensitive.  He  kept  a 
kind  of  open  house,  and  every  day  his  plan  terreno 
received  into  its  ample  apartments  a  throng  of  local 
mendicants  come  to  taste  of  stranger  hospitality ; 
a  throng  whose  facile  and  pictorial  gratitude  gave 
him,  while  its  novelty  lasted,  a  very  large  measure  of 
self-complacency;  a  throng  that  gradually  came  to 
include  such  of  the  lower  grades  of  respectability  as 
look  out  from  Ravenna's  windows,  in  the  guise  of 
worn  women,  with  an  appealing  hopelessness  in  the 
eyes,  or  as  hover  about  the  doors  of  the  caffe,  with 
the  aspect  of  unshaven  and  shabby  middle  age,  ex 
pectant  of  some  refreshment  at  the  hands  of  the 
breakfasting  visitor.  Avon  had  lived  long  enough 
in  Italy  to  need  an  outward  and  palpable  form  of  ex 
pression  for  thoughts  and  motives  and  emotions ;  he 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.          139 

preferred  life  to  manifest  itself  in  such  a  way  as  to 
be  susceptible  of  artistic  representation.  He  could 
have  drawn  for  some  deserving  charity  a  check  for  a 
thousand  times  the  cost  of  his  daily  Ravennese  ban 
quet,  and  have  received  no  pleasure  whatever  in  do 
ing  so ;  for  the  formal  letter  of  thanks  from  some 
Board  of  Guardians  or  Trustees  that  such  an  abstract 
and  circuitous  and  impersonal  and  highly  evolved 
way  of  doing  things  might  have  evoked  would  have 
given  him  little  satisfaction  compared  with  the  pal 
pable  and  fully-materialized  gratitude  that  his  own 
direct  and  simple  method  called  out,  —  a  method 
whose  patriarchal  and  elemental  character  was  quite 
untinged  with  modernism.  Seals  and  official  signa 
tures  were  unsatisfying  enough  as  compared  with  the 
picturesque  groups  of  mendicants  whose  deferential 
salutations  met  his  every  egress  from  the  Palazzo 
Caduti's  great  portone.  But  it  is  by  no  means  to  be 
inferred  that  his  procedure  abroad  in  any  degree  in 
dicated  his  procedure  at  home,  Worcester  witnessed 
no  such  overflowing  benevolence  as  did  Bavenna  •  his 
own  tenantry  were  far  from  idealizing  him  into  a 
philanthropist. 

His  purposes,  whatever  they  were,  took  him  fre 
quently  to  the  town  library,  where  he  commanded  a 
degree  of  attention  that  the  Cavaliere  himself,  a  fre 
quent  visitor,  did  not  always  receive;  though  in  justice 
to  this  institution  it  is  but  right  to  say  that  even  the 
most  casual  and  purposeless  of  visitors  is  by  no  means 
slighted, — the  painstaking  and  conscientious  way  in 
which  long-closed  shutters  are  opened  and  long-locked- 
up  relics  are  brought  forth  fills  the  time-killing  idler 


140          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

with  something  almost  like  a  repentant  shame.  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  often  saw  Avon  there  in  close  conference 
with  the  head  librarian,  and  knowing  that  his  Grace 
was  engaged  in  laboriously  forming  a  costly  and  mag 
nificent  collection  of  works  of  art  and  the  like  for  the 
pleasure  that  its  dissipation  would  presently  afford  a 
certain  young  blackguard  of  a  nephew,  thought  no 
more  about  it,  and  went  on  steadily  congealing  him 
self  in  his  churches.  In  one  of  these,  one  morning, 
as  he  sat  under  the  apse,  from  which  a  stiff  array  of 
gaunt  and  forbidding  figures  cast  a  stony  and  spectral 
glare  upon  himself  and  his  work, —  they  had  never 
been  sketched  before,  and  resented  the  intrusion, —  a 
step  came  lightly  and  briskly  up  the  nave,  and  a  voice 
which  he  immediately  recognized  presently  addressed 
him  over  his  shoulder.  It  was  the  Contessa  Nullaui- 
una,  who  at  once  made  apparent  her  assumption  that 
her  presence  at  such  a  time  and  place  could  not  but 
be  highly  appreciated,  and  who  accounted  for  herself 
with  a  fluency  that,  in  even  her  least  inspired  moments, 
never  quite  deserted  her.  She  wore  a  costume  of 
rich  and  sober  black, — it  were  a  betise,  indeed,  to 
walk  Ravenna's  mournful  streets  in  colors, —  but  her 
parasol  carried  a  huge  bow  of  vivid  scarlet  which  ap 
preciably  mitigated  the  sepulchral  chill  of  the  sanctu 
ary.  She  was  visiting,  she  announced,  some  dear 
friends  of  hers,  who  had  been  kind  enough  to  ask  her 
to  pass  a  fortnight  with  them, — the  family  of  the 
Caduti ;  and  how  strange  it  was  that  he  should  have 
been  in  the  town  nearly  that  length  of  time  already 
without  their  once  having  met  each  other.  And  how 
opportune  it  was,  too,  that  she  should  have  encountered 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI  -VANI.          141 

him  here  at  Ravenna,  where,  of  all  places  in  the  world, 
a  "human  interest7'  (as  the  phrase  went)  was  most 
seriously  lacking.  She  laid  her  parasol  upon  a  chill 
and  ancient  sarcophagus  close  by,  and  turned  upon 
him  with  an  air  which  seemed  to  intimate  that  her 
contribution  of  the  hitherto-missing  human  interest 
would  begin  at  once. 

The  Cavaliere  immediately  noted  the  double  torsion 
of  the  truth  which  marked  his  fair  visitor's  mono 
logue.  He  knew  that  the  Contessa  must  have  invited 
herself  to  Ravenna,  for  the  Caduti  would  never  vol 
untarily  have  brought  upon  themselves  the  martyrdom, 
involved  in  a  fortnight's  entertainment  of  anybody 
whomsoever;  and  he  had,  furthermore,  very  positive 
knowledge  that  their  family  circle  had  remained  un- 
invaded  up  to  within  the  last  three  days.  But  there 
are  times  when  almost  all  of  us  find  it  advantageous 
to  perform  our  little  variations  on  the  truth,  and  the 
Cavaliere,  smilingly  admiring  the  richness  of  the  Con- 
tessa's  orchestration,  set  her  another  theme  by  asking 
civilly  after  her  good  spouse.  But  the  Contessa's 
treatment  of  this  subject  was  in  a  manner  as  plain 
and  bald  as  the  mention  of  the  Count's  name  usually 
provoked.  She  knew  very  little,  she  declared,  of  her 
husband's  present  whereabouts;  she  raised  her  eye 
brows  at  the  Cavaliere's  superfluous  courtesy,  and 
shrugged  her  liege  back  into  the  obscurity  from 
which  this  courtesy  had  brought  him.  And  she  ap 
peared  to  express  the  conviction  that  Ravenna  and 
the  present  hour  might  very  justly  monopolize  all  the 
attention  that  she  had  to  bestow. 

But  to  one  so  highly  contemporaneous  as  this  lady 


142          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

the  present  hour  was  much  more  important  than  the 
present  place,  and  she  made  no  pretense  of  concealing 
the  fact  that,  to  her,  the  student  was  more  interesting 
than  his  study.  In  vain  the  Cavaliere  held  up  Ra 
venna  as  the  most  unique  town  in  Europe, — a  town 
whose  monuments  seemed  infinitely  more  gray  and 
hoary  than  the  most  time-honored  ruins  of  Rome 
itself,  and  stood  mementos  of  a  peculiarly  curious  and 
critical  epoch  in  history, — an  epoch  which,  without 
them,  must  have  ever  remained  a  mere  blank;  in  vain 
he  invited  her  to  inhale  that  peculiar  atmosphere  of 
the  far-aside  —  so  much  more  rare  and  precious  than 
the  atmosphere  of  the  merely  f  ar-behind  — which  over 
hangs  and  permeates  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Ex 
archate;  in  vain  he  opened  up  the  musty  annals  of 
the  place  and  attempted  to  quicken  an  interest  in  the 
shades  of  Stilicho  and  Odoacer;  in  vain  he  escorted 
her  about  among  the  various  fabrics  that  still  survive 
from  the  last  of  the  Roman  and  the  first  of  the  Gothic 
days:  she  yawned  at  the  mausoleum  of  Theodoric, 
and  failed  to  palpitate  even  at  the  storied  tomb  of 
Galla  Placidia.  Pensieri-Vani,  who  conceived  that  he 
had  now  harped  on  every  string  which  the  visitor  and 
student  in  this  hoary  and  venerable  town  was  ordi 
narily  expected  to  respond  to,  was  quite  nonplussed 
when  the  Contessa  at  last  roundly  declared  that  there 
was  nothing  hoary  or  venerable  about  her,  and  with 
an  air  of  impatient  familiarity  requested  him  to  retire 
these  moss-grown  interests  to  their  rightful  obscurity. 
He  had  been  her  guide,  her  philosopher,  her  friend, 
but  none  of  these,  it  seemed,  was  quite  enough;  and 
it  was  presently  borne  in  upon  him  that  if  he  did  all 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.          143 

that  was  expected  of  him  he  would  make  a  flying  leap 
from  the  fifth  century  to  the  nineteenth,  and,  landing 
at  the  feet  of  his  fair  contemporary,  would  devote 
himself  exclusively  to  her  gratification.  To  such  an 
arrangement  as  this  there  could  be  but  one  objection, 
and  the  Count,  whose  present  post  was  quite  unknown, 
could  not  be  regarded  as  an  objection  that  was  in 
superable.  Then,  if  the  Cavaliere  were  to  become  a 
cavalier e  servente,  there  was  abundant  warrant  for 
such  a  course, — in  Ravenna.  The  idea  embodied  in 
this  singular  social  figure  was  rather  antiquated,  to 
be  sure;  but  Pensieri-Vani,  as  I  have  shown,  had  dis 
tinct  leanings  toward  the  antique.  He  entered  upon 
his  new  duties  with  a  joyful  promptness,  and  from  his 
new  standpoint  seemed  to  see  in  the  immediate  future 
the  revivification  of  the  Eomagna. 

But  the  Cavaliere  entertained  quite  a  diversity  of 
interests,  and  was  perfectly  capable  of  driving  two  of 
them  abreast.  La  Nullaniuna,  who  was  not  the  first 
woman  whose  intimacy  he  had  enjoyed,  filled  only 
half  his  vision,  and  he  had  one  eye  left  for  Avon  and 
Severn  and  his  ducal  doings.  These  doings,  while 
they  were  becoming  more  interesting,  remained  none 
the  less  obscure,  and  Pensieri-Vani  was  quite  delighted 
when  the  Contessa  suggested  that  their  entente  cordiale 
should  be  emphasized  by  an  attempt  on  her  part  to 
penetrate  the  ducal  intentions.  She  was  not  on  good 
terms  with  the  Duke  himself, — very  few  people  were, 
— but  she  felt  quite  assured  that  the  reception  of  the 
New  Corinne  at  the  Biblioteca  Comunale,  which  his 
Grace  visited  so  frequently,  would  be  all  that  her 
genius  justly  demanded,  and  would  lead  her  to  all  she 


144          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEItt-VANI. 

wanted  to  learn.  In  all  this  she  was  quite  right.  The 
custodians  of  the  town's  literary  possessions  received 
her  with  a  most  respectful  courtesy;  her  finesse  made 
them  as  but  clay  in  the  potter's  hands j  and  she  was 
able  to  report  to  Pensieri-Vani  one  object,  at  least,  of 
Avon's  stay  in  the  place,  and  the  sole  object  of  his 
numerous  visits  to  its  chief  repository  of  learning. 

The  Duke,  it  seemed,  had  been  brought  to  Ravenna 
by  a  rumor  of  equal  interest  to  the  book-lover  and 
the  book-buyer.  A  small  collection  of  undoubted 
Aldines,  to  be  found  somewhere,  known  to  be  in  the 
possession  of  somebody,  and  likely  to  be  obtainable 
by  somebody  else,  was  the  magnet  that  had  drawn  him 
hither.  The  shade  of  Aldo  Manuzio  had  guided  him 
across  the  Apennines,  and  was  now  stalking  before 
him  through  Ravenna's  silent  streets.  The  Duke  had 
set  his  heart  upon  these  volumes,  and  the  Duke's 
nephew — who  was  something  of  a  book-maker  him 
self — would  no  doubt  inherit  the  joy  of  his  cultivated 
relative.  Here  was  an  opportunity  for  the  Cavaliere 
to  close  a  long-open  account;  and  the  Contessa,  who 
had  entertained  Avon  at  Pisa  with  an  anticipated 
pleasure  which  his  peculiar  manners  had  seriously 
qualified,  begged  to  enter  a  partnership  which  seemed 
to  offer  a  chance  for  a  partial  revenge,  at  least,  on  the 
guest's  discourtesy.  This  revenge  was  not  to  be  such 
a  simple  and  primitive  affair  as  revenges  frequently 
are,  for  it  was  to  involve  the  second  generation.  The 
sins  of  the  uncle  should  be  visited  upon  the  nephew, 
and  the  future  duke  of  Avon  and  Severn,  as  the  auc 
tioneer's  hammer  knocked  down  Rubens  and  Goujon 
and  Cellini  and  Hobbema,  should  suffer  untold  exas- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          145 

peration  at  the  thought  of  the  hand  which  had  rescued 
the  great  Venetian  from  the  infliction  of  a  correspond 
ing  brutality. 

The  Cavaliere,  who  was  now  holding  the  ribbons 
over  the  Duke  and  the  Countess,  presently  added  a 
third  interest,  bringing  the  Caduti  under  them,  too. 
La  Nullaniuna  still  held  her  place  as  a  member  of 
this  impoverished  household,  but  Pensieri-Vani,  after 
various  attempts  made  in  a  tentative  and  circuitous 
way,  finally  brought  her  to  a  partial  sense  of  the 
embarrassment  she  was  occasioning  her  entertainers. 
She  boldly  offered  to  transfer  herself  to  a  hotel.   But 
the  Cavaliere  was  not  prepared  for  this.    He  acted,  if 
not  as  her  conscience,  at  least  as  her  balance-wheel,  and 
while  he  encouraged  her  to  an  occasional  advance,  he 
more  frequently  held  her  back  from  a  serious  indiscre 
tion.   But  he  merely  said  that  though  each  of  the  rival 
inns  might  be  decorated  with  numerous  tablets  comme 
morating  their  entertainment  of  various  serenities  and 
transparencies,  these  decorations  did  nothing  to  miti 
gate  their  dread  discomfort ;  and  the  impatient  lady 
declared  that  she  saw  nothing  to  do  but  to  leave  the 
town  altogether.    She  would  never  have  chosen  it  her 
self,  anyway  (the  Cavaliere  raised  his  eyebrows  at  this 
unconscious  admission),  and  should  be  glad  to  leave  so 
dull  a  place  at  once.   But  their  difficulty  solved  itself, 
as  some  difficulties  will.   The  Duke,  it  presently  came 
to  them,  was  on  the  point  of  breaking  up  his  estab 
lishment  and  of  transferring  himself  to  Venice.     The 
Cavaliere,  who  had  about  finished  his  task  at  Ravenna, 
and  who  himself  longed  for  a  brisker  life,  and  who, 
besides,  favored  Venice  as  a  battle-field  with  the  confi- 


146          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI  -VANI. 

dence  that  a  knowledge  of  every  foot  of  the  ground 
inspired,  was  willing  enough  to  make  the  transfer, 
likewise ;  and  Avon  had  scarcely  left  for  Venice  by 
rail  via  Bologna  before  Pensieri -Vani  and  La  Nulla- 
niuna  themselves  entered  upon  a  more  direct,  though 
less  frequented,  road  toward  the  Lagoons. 


XI 

VENICE:     A    DOUBLE    ENDEAVOR 

THE  two  competitors  arrived  on  the 
ground  at  very  nearly  the  same 
time,  for  Avon,  though  he  adopted 
a  speedier  route,  did  not  fully  rea 
lize  the  role  which  the  Cavaliere  was 
putting  upon  him,  and  so  saw  no 
necessity  for  pushing  through  at 
the  speed  with  which  he  had  begun. 
But  this  leisurely  advance  did  not  particularly  accrue 
to  the  Cavaliere's  advantage,  for  Pensieri-Vani,  as  he 
entered  Venice,  was  met  at  the  outset  by  a  complica 
tion  of  interests  which  competed  briskly  enough  for 
his  attention  and  almost  threatened  to  eclipse  the 
Aldines  altogether.  The  first  intimation  he  received 
that  his  visit  to  Venice  was  not  to  have  bibliography 
for  its  be-all  and  end-all  came  to  him  as,  in  his  very 
first  stroll,  he  passed  between  the  two  columns  of  the 
Piazzetta  and  looked  out  over  the  serried  ranks  of 
the  gondolas  toward  the  picturesque  shipping  that 
surrounded  the  Dogana.  In  the  midst  of  this,  though 
with  an  un crowded  freedom  which  bespoke  the  enjoy 
ment  of  a  very  great  consideration,  the  twin  spars  of 

147 


148          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

a  light  and  graceful  craft  swayed  with  the  movements 
of  the  in-rushing  tide  and  shook  their  snowy  festoons 
of  canvas  over  the  easy  curve  of  a  swept  and  gar 
nished  deck.  The  Cavaliere  immediately  addressed 
himself  to  the  nearest  gondolier  for  information 
regarding  this  elegant  and  high-bred  stranger,  and 
more  than  shared  the  boatman's  appreciative  delight 
when  he  learned  that  he  was  looking  upon  the  new 
yacht  of  the  Prorege  of  Arcopia.  He  had  heard 
nothing  definite  from  the  Prorege  for  several  months 
—  no  more,  in  fact,  than  that  his  building  operations 
had  been  going  on  quite  extensively  for  some  time, 
though,  if  report  could  be  credited,  on  lines  rather 
different  from  those  originally  laid  down ;  and  this 
sudden  presentation  of  the  viceregal  figure  filled  him 
with  a  pleased  surprise.  He  was  glad  to  note  the  proof 
that  the  Arcopians  had  at  last  arrived  at  a  full  appre 
ciation  of  their  ruler, —  though  this,  of  course,  was 
bound  to  come  sooner  or  later ;  and  he  congratulated 
himself  on  an  opportunity  for  turning  to  his  own 
account  the  proverbial  good  nature  of  this  easy-going 
prince.  He  was  striving  after  the  Aldines  less  because 
he  wanted  them  himself  than  because  he  knew  that 
Avon  wanted  them ;  he  could  hardly  afford  to  buy 
them,  and  would  not  care  for  them  overmuch  even  if 
he  were  to  obtain  them ;  but  if  he  could  influence 
some  liberal  patron  of  the  arts  to  exert  himself  to 
acquire  these  precious  trifles,  he  might  easily  carry 
his  point  without  any  embarrassment  to  his  own 
plans  or  pocket. 

But  the  Prorege's  presence  in  Venice  involved,  as 
the  Cavaliere  presently  discovered,  the  presence  of 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          149 

several  other  people,  more  than  one  of  whom  stood 
ready  to  make  considerable  claims  upon  his  time  and 
attention.  The  first  and  chief  of  these  was  Occident, 
who  appeared  within  the  initial  twenty-four  hours  of 
the  Cavaliere's  stay. 

Pensieri  -Vani  had  just  received  a  handful  of  letters 
from  the  Prorege, —  letters  which  had  been  addressed 
to  him  at  various  places,  and  which,  following  him  on 
from  Ravenna  to  Venice,  reiterated  in  varied  phrase 
one  very  nattering  invitation, —  and  was  felicitating 
himself  on  the  fashion  in  which  the  fates  were  further 
ing  his  plans,  when  a  card  was  handed  in  which  was 
presently  followed  by  the  child  of  so  many  cares. 
Occident  presented  himself  in  the  first  instance  as  the 
bearer  of  a  message.  The  Prorege,  he  said,  while  not 
now  himself  in  Venice  (having  two  or  three  days' 
business  on  the  mainland),  was  almost  hourly  ex 
pected  to  return ;  and  as  soon  after  his  arrival  as 
practicable  the  Adria,  with  a  brilliant  company  of 
guests,  would  set  sail  for  Arcopia  to  participate  in 
the  approaching  festivities  commemorating  the  com 
pletion  of  the  Prorege's  latest  enterprise.  The  Ca- 
valiere  was  most  particularly  and  urgently  invited  to 
enroll  himself  among  the  passengers;  Occident,  in 
fact,  represented  himself  as  but  one  of  a  half-dozen 
to  whom  the  present  office  had  been  intrusted.  Pen 
sieri  -Vani  thereupon  showed  his  packet  of  letters  to 
Occident,  and  declared  himself  now  sufficiently  in 
vited  to  justify  an  unqualified  acceptance.  He  had 
not  realized  that  he  had  been  so  buried  from  the 
world,  and  asked  for  the  names  of  a  few  of  his  fellow- 
voyagers.  Some  of  these  names  he  recognized,  and 


150          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

some  of  them  he  did  not ;  but  Hors-Concours  was 
among  them,  and  he  recalled  the  Princess  Altissimi 
without  any  great  difficulty. 

Occident  presented  himself,  in  the  second  instance, 
as  a  suppliant.  His  manner  from  the  moment  he 
crossed  the  threshold  had  foreboded,  in  its  outcrop 
ping  of  embarrassment  and  vexation  and  worry,  an 
appeal  for  sympathy  and  help,  and  Pensieri -Vani, 
when  the  appeal  at  length  came,  was  less  surprised 
than  annoyed.  The  harassed  and  shamefaced  Occi 
dent  set  forth  at  some  length  the  story  of  the  com 
plications  from  which  he  begged  his  friend  to  extricate 
him ;  but  a  general  statement  of  his  trouble  is  all  that 
I  can  allow  myself  here.  This  trouble  he  had  brought 
upon  himself  by  his  assumption  of  the  role  of  picture- 
buyer,  and  his  independence  and  confidence  had  in 
volved  him  pretty  deeply.  He  had  not  only  made 
several  purchases  that  the  knowing  ones  were  begin 
ning  to  consider  disadvantageous,  but,  what  was  worse, 
he  was  bound  to  other  purchases  whose  consumma 
tion,  he  was  coming  to  feel,  would  be  simply  disas 
trous.  He  confessed  himself  unable  to  cope  with  the 
members  of  the  worshipful  company  of  picture-deal 
ers,  whose  slippery  sinuosities  he  could  not  begin  to 
follow,  and  he  implored  the  Cavaliere,  as  a  gentle 
man-amateur,  to  come  to  his  assistance.  Pensieri- 
Vani  listened  to  his  visitor's  tale  with  some  impa 
tience,  and  promised,  though  rather  grudgingly,  to 
do  what  he  could,  for  he  felt  that  in  this  particular 
emergency  he  was  not  likely  to  figure  to  any  great 
advantage.  He  had  never  made  as  thorough  a  study 
of  the  Venetian  school  as  of  the  Florentine,  and  his 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF   PENSIEBI -VANI.          151 

knowledge  of  it,  though  respectable,  was  not  such  as 
would  compel  the  consideration  of  a  shrewd  and  as 
tute  picture-dealer.  Ladronini,  on  the  Lung'  Arno, 
would  have  feared  him;  but  these  people  on  the 
Canalazzo  could  not  be  influenced  in  the  same  way. 
But  in  what  other  way  they  could  be  influenced  by 
any  force  at  his  disposal  he  was  by  no  means  sure. 
His  knowledge  of  pictures  was  his  chief  weapon,  after 
all;  it  was  at  moments  like  this  that  the  shortness  of 
his  social  stature  and  the  blankness  of  his  social  back 
ing  called  out  his  most  impatient  protest.  If  he  were 
only  a  great  and  weighty  figure,  like  Arcopia,  what 
might  he  not  do !  but  the  thought  of  the  favor  that 
he  himself  meant  to  ask  at  the  hands  of  this  service 
able  prince  barred  him  from  preferring  any  petition 
in  Occident's  behalf.  But  the  first  thing  to  do  was  to 
explore  the  ground,  and  Occident  presently  undertook 
to  pilot  him  to  the  presence  of  the  supposititious  Bor- 
dones  and  Bellinis. 

Now  Occident  had  been  in  Venice  but  a  fortnight, 
and  while  he  was  tolerably  well  versed  in  the  theory 
of  threading  the  Venetian  maze,  he  had  not  had 
much  opportunity  for  actual  practice.  It  was  not  long 
before  he  became  uncertain  of  his  way;  from  the 
uncertain  he  passed  to  the  bewildered;  from  the  be 
wildered  he  passed  to  the  helplessly  and  hopelessly 
lost;  and  the  Cavaliere,  who,  in  following  Occident's 
lead,  had  given  no  particular  heed  to  his  course,  came 
to  be  quite  as  completely  at  sea.  A  stranger  lost  in 
Venice;  —  sad  and  sorrowing  sight !  What  balkings 
from  bridgeless  canals;  —  what  rebuffs  from  deceptive 
culs-de-sac; — what  significant  smiles  from  passers-by; 


11 


152          THE  CHEVALIEK  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

what  cutting  gibes  from  grinning  street-boys; — what 
air-cleaving  shouts  from  window  to  window,  to  tell  of 
another  forestiere  gone  astray!  Occident  quailed 
before  these  hurtling  sarcasms,  and  resigned  to  the 
amused  Cavaliere  the  guidance  of  the  expedition. 

It  was  in  a  dark  and  narrow  and  stony  little  calle, 
where  a  cleft  cypress,  peeping  over  a  high  wall,  tes 
tified  that  the  entire  world  was  not  built  of  brick  and 
mortar,  and  a  sparse  band  of  blue  just  overhead  served 
as  a  reminder  that  somewhere  or  other  the  sun  was 
still  shining,  that  the  Cavaliere  again  reached  terra 
cognita.  At  a  sudden  turning — or  shall  I  say,  cross 
ing — they  all  at  once  found  themselves  face  to  face 
with  the  Duke  of  Avon,  who  passed  them  rapidly  with 
a  stare  of  surprise  and  displeasure,  and  a  particularly 
ungracious  bow.  The  Cavaliere  gave  one  glance  to 
the  right  and  one  to  the  left,  and  knew  where  he  was 
instantly.  The  sight  of  Avon  reminded  him  of  their 
common  reason  for  being  in  Venice,  and  of  the  ex 
istence,  too,  somewhere  in  that  very  neighborhood,  of 
a  certain  antiquarian's  shop  where  he  himself  had 
once  had  dealings;  the  direction  of  Avon's  walk  told 
him  in  which  way  this  shop  lay  and  revealed  to  him 
in  a  flash  the  topography  of  the  whole  quarter.  The 
Aldines  might  be  within  a  few  score  yards  of  him, 
now.  Oblivious  of  all  pictorial  fraud,  he  seized  Occi 
dent  by  the  arm,  dragged  the  astonished  young  fellow 
back  a  hundred  feet  or  more,  turned  a  sudden  corner, 
crossed  a  diminutive  piazza,  hurried  up  a  narrow  little 
lane,  and  in  a  moment  more  again  encountered  the 
Duke  at  the  bookseller's  very  door.  He  saw  at  a 
glance  that  the  Duke  perceived  the  whole  situation ; 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANL          153 

he  felt  sure  that  Avon  had  received  intelligence  of 
their  inquiries  at  Ravenna, —  intelligence  which,  taken 
in  connection  with  this  peculiar  meeting,  put  his  rival 
in  full  possession  of  the  consciousness  of  rivalship. 
But  neither  one  betrayed  himself  5  each  passed  011 
(though  with  the  scantest  courtesy)  as  if  he  had  no 
interest  in  the  neighborhood  whatever  and  as  if  his 
presence  there  were  of  the  most  casual  character.  But 
Pensieri-Vani  judged  from  Avon's  manner — the  Duke 
could  not  but  have  betrayed  him  self  had  any  immediate 
risk  been  involved  —  that  the  common  recipient  of 
their  intended  visits  was  to  serve  merely  as  a  stepping- 
stone  to  the  final  result;  and  he  deemed  it  safe  to  go 
on  for  a  short  time  with  Occident's  affair. 

The  masterpieces  which  had  so  fixed  their  clutch  on 
the  purse  of  this  ambitious  connoisseur  were  housed 
in  one  of  the  minor  palazzi  on  the  Grand  Canal,  and 
the  individual  who  seemed  most  interested  in  their 
transfer  appeared  to  have  assumed  with  some  degree 
of  success  the  exterior  of  a  gentleman.  He  exhibited 
an  assurance  for  which  his  environment  and  his  own 
personal  aspect  furnished  an  adequate  justification, 
and  the  Cavaliere  presently  discerned  through  the 
thin  veil  of  false  respect  that  the  fellow  hung  between 
them  the  dim  outlines  of  a  great  conspiracy  whose 
fabric  was  firm  and  whose  figures  were  many.  The 
canvases  were  not  much  better  and  not  much  worse 
than  he  had  anticipated  finding  them.  Concerning 
one  he  himself  was  in  doubt ;  a  second  was  of  the 
school  to  whose  head  it  was  attributed ;  a  third  was 
a  flagrant  and  impudent  fraud.  The  Cavaliere  made 
a  few  careful  comments,  and  asked  a  cautious  ques- 


154          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEKI -VANL 

tion  or  two ;  but  the  veil  lifted  enough  to  reveal 
the  presence  of  a  potential  insolence  which  he  could 
resent,  indeed,  but  which  he  could  hardly  punish,  and 
he  thought  it  advisable  to  act  on  the  time-honored 
motto  of  "  festina  lente."  He  presently  withdrew,  but 
the  sneering  ceremony  with  which  the  picture-dealer 
bowed  him  out  and  the  impertinent  glance  of  secure 
proprietorship  under  which  his  young  companion 
made  an  exit  remained  to  rankle  in  his  breast. 

But  another  concern  soon  came  to  overlay  this  one. 
The  gondola  which  they  had  taken  from  amidst  the 
tall  and  gaily  painted  poll  that  hedged  in  the  palace 
steps  had  hardly  gone  forward  a  hundred  yards  when 
it  was  overtaken  by  a  similar  craft,  issuing  from  a 
side  canal,  whose  propeller  sped  it  rapidly  forward 
under  the  urgings  of  its  excited  occupant.  This  im 
patient  person  turned  out  to  be  the  Contessa ;  her 
face  was  full  of  great  things,  and  the  Cavaliere  saw 
at  a  glance  that  a  very  important  advance  had  been 
made  in  the  matter  of  the  Aldines.  They  were  almost 
in  sight,  as  it  seemed,  when  the  ardent  lady  poured 
out  the  account  of  her  doings,  though  as  her  ac 
count  progressed  their  number  seemed  to  diminish 
strangely.  She  announced  furthermore,  as  the  two 
gondolas  advanced  side  by  side  down  the  canal,  that 
the  Prorege  had  returned  to  the  city  and  that  the 
departure  for  Arcopia  would  take  place  on  the  mor 
row.  She  hardly  knew  how  she  was  to  accept  the 
quarters  which  the  Prorege  had  placed  at  her  dis 
posal  ;  one  of  the  ladies,  indeed,  had  been  kind 
enough  to  allow  any  services  that  her  own  maid 
could  perform,  but  really  there  would  be  no  ward- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          155 

robe  for  the  woman  to  look  after  —  she  herself  had 
never  before  put  to  sea  at  an  hour's  notice.  But  all 
that  was  of  little  consequence ;  as  long  as  the  Cava 
liere,  too,  was  to  sail  with  the  rest,  and  as  their  busi 
ness  in  Venice  must  be  closed  immediately,  time  was 
the  thing  that  was  most  important.  She  had  traced 
the  Aldines  as  far  as  she  alone  could  go ;  the  Cava- 
liere  himself  must  take  the  matter  up  at  once  and 
bring  it  to  a  close.  He  might  well,  however,  prepare 
to  find  the  volumes  less  numerous  and  less  valuable 
than  they  had  anticipated  ;  but,  such  as  they  were,  they 
could  be  found  somewhere  in  Canareggio  if  he  would 
lose  no  time  in  seeking  that  quarter.  A  note  of  pro 
test  that  might  shortly  develop  into  indignation  began 
to  sound  in  the  Contessa's  rapid  monologue,  and  the 
air  of  doubting  surprise  with  which  she  had  first 
greeted  Occident  had  already  given  way  to  an  expres 
sion  of  grave  displeasure  that  he  should  have  been 
the  means  of  diverting  Pensieri-Vani's  attention  at 
such  a  time  from  an  undertaking  of  so  much  conse 
quence,  and  that  the  Cavaliere  should  have  allowed 
himself  to  be  so  easily  turned  aside.  More  and  more 
she  took  the  tone  of  one  slighted,  superseded,  aban 
doned;  every  intonation  breathed  a  protesting  sigh 
over  man's  inconstancy,  ingratitude,  and  instability, 
and  the  alarmed  Cavaliere  felt  obliged  to  make,  in  his 
own  defense  as  well  as  for  the  ease  of  his  bewildered 
companion,  a  brief  statement  of  the  affair  for  whose 
settlement  he  had  allowed  himself  to  be  temporarily 
drawn  away  from  his  own  concern  and  hers.  This 
explanation  of  itself  would  have  done  little  to  placate 
the  offended  Contessa,  but  the  immediate  prospect  of 


156          THE  CHEVALIEB  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

another  matter  to  dabble  in  at  once  dispelled  her 
gathering  anger  and  refilled  her  with  an  enthusiasm 
as  eager  as  her  first.  At  her  suggestion,  or  her  com 
mand,  Pensieri-Vani  hastened  on  alone  to  the  distant 
Jewish  quarter,  and  on  her  invitation  Occident  trans 
ferred  himself  to  her  own  boat,  where,  on  the  way 
back  to  the  Molo,  he  poured  into  her  interested  ears 
at  greater  length  his  tale  of  woe.  The  Contessa  was 
simply  fascinated  by  his  fantastic  and  lugubrious  re 
cital,  and  declared  that  nothing  would  satisfy  her  but 
an  attempt  to  beard  the  lion  in  his  den ;  and  this 
attempt  she  entered  upon  a  few  hours  later  in  the 
same  day.  She  divined  that  Occident  himself  would 
add  nothing  to  the  strength  of  her  forces,  so  she  de 
cided  to  associate  with  her  the  Princess  Altissimi,  and 
to  ask  Hors-Concours  to  serve  as  their  escort.  A 
grande  dame  and  a  femme  d' esprit  she  flattered  her 
self  —  making  no  account  of  their  companion,  who, 
as  a  mere  man,  was  quite  unfitted  for  an  exploit  of 
this  character — might  very  confidently  court  success  ; 
the  one  should  magnificently  overawe,  and  the  other 
might  intrigue  and  strategize  to  the  top  of  her  bent. 
The  Contessa  set  out  with  her  train  in  high  feather, 
but  when  she  again  encountered  Occident  on  her 
return,  the  young  man  still  wore  in  her  sight  the 
chains  by  which  art  for  money's  sake  had  bound 
him.  Her  expedition  had  not  been  a  very  great  suc 
cess;  the  "creatures" — she  never  alluded  to  them  in 
any  other  terms  —  had  been  greatly  impressed,  in 
deed,  but  in  no  great  measure  intimidated ;  and  poor 
Occident,  whose  loss  of  money  and  credit  and  spirits 
had  already  been  pretty  considerable,  could  only  look 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.         157 

forward  to  the  doleful  hour  when  he  should  be  more 
or  less  completely  stripped  of  all  three. 

Peiisieri-Vani,  meanwhile,  had  lunched  wretchedly 
in  a  vile  little  den  in  Canareggio,  and  had  at  length, 
after  repeated  knockings  from  pillar  to  post  all  among 
the  ethereal  showers  of  goose-down  that  waft  them 
selves  through  the  precincts  of  that  remote  and  un 
prepossessing  quarter,  come  upon  some  traces  of  the 
great  treasure  for  whose  possession  he  had  so  striven. 
At  about  the  time  that  the  Contessa  was  contending 
with  the  impostors  of  the  Palazzo  Truffa  the  Cavaliere 
stood  in  the  doorway  of  a  mean  and  dingy  little  house 
on  a  side  canal  scrutinizing  in  alternation  the  title- 
pages  of  two  diminutive  volumes — to  this  had  the 
treasure  dwindled — each  of  which  was  stamped  with 
the  magical  dolphin  and  anchor  and  bore  the  great 
name  of  AL  DVS.  Each  purported  also  to  be  a  Statins 
of  1502.  Both  were  of  the  same  size  and  bulk;  both 
were  printed  on  paper  thin  and  smooth  and  unsized ; 
in  both  the  initial  capitals  were  upright,  unduly  small, 
and  detached  so  as  to  form  a  perpendicular  line  quite 
by  themselves; — while  the  body  of  the  text  was  in 
that  small,  clear  "alcTine"  type  patterned  after  the 
thin,  sharp,  inclined  handwriting  of  Petrarch;  and 
in  both  the  title-page  was  undoubtedly  an  integral 
part  of  the  volume.  But  there  were  minor  differ 
ences  in  these  titles  that  a  bibliophile  would  not  be 
slow  to  observe,  and  that  caused  the  Cavaliere  to 
regard  both  volumes  with  a  serious  suspicion.  They 
not  only  differed  from  each  other,  but  neither  was 
wholly  consistent  with  itself.  He  put  them  both  back 
into  the  hands  of  their  present  possessor,— a  gray- 


158          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

bearded  old  man  who  had  pushed  his  skull-cap  back 
on  his  head,  and  who  now  stood  rubbing  his  hooked 
nose  with  an  abstracted  indifference, — and  then  he 
snatched  them  back  and  chose  between  them.  The 
gray-beard,  for  some  reason,  put  no  particular  value 
on  either,  and  the  Cavaliere,  paying  the  trifling  sum 
demanded,  and  smiling  ruefully  at  this  trivial  ending 
to  so  great  an  enterprise,  took  his  book  and  went  his 
way.  Half  an  hour  later  the  Duke  of  Avon  and 
Severn  purchased  the  other. 

Now  that  his  own  affair  had  come,  or  so  he  thought, 
to  a  conclusion, — a  conclusion  however  lame  and  im 
potent, — the  Cavaliere  turned  himself  at  once  to  that 
other  affair  of  Occident's;  and  when  he  learned  of 
the  course  that  things  had  taken,  or  had  refused  to 
take,  he  straightway  justified  himself  in  a  resolution 
to  ask,  after  all,  the  assistance  of  the  Prorege ;  for  he 
had  now  no  favor  to  ask  for  himself,  and  the  prince's 
interest  in  his  young  charge  was  as  active  as  ever. 
He  told  Occident  of  his  intention,  and  cautioned  him 
not  to  utter  a  word  that  might  give  their  august  friend 
an  idea  of  the  real  gravity  of  the  situation.  Occident 
received  this  suggestion  in  blank  amaze ;  he  had  his 
own  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  the  Prorege  would 
best  proceed.  But  Pensieri-Vani  pointed  out  that  the 
less  Arcopia  himself  knew  of  the  matter  the  more 
successful  his  intervention  might  be,  for  assuredly  he 
would  not  condescend  to  a  mere  contest  of  wits  with 
a  pack  of  ignoble  sharpers,  nor  would  he  submit  to 
the  ignominy  of  lending  his  dignity  and  state  to  cow  a 
handful  of  felonious  individuals  who  in  mere  shrewd 
ness  might  have  quite  outmatched  them. 


THE    CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          159 

Occident  soon  saw  the  reasonableness  of  this,  and 
Pensieri -Vani  presently  went  to  pay  his  respects  to 
the  Prorege.  The  Prorege,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
was  in  the  best  of  good  spirits.  He  was  delighted  to 
meet  the  Cavaliere,  and  readily  agreed  to  accompany 
Occident  next  morning  to  view  that  young  man's 
prospective  purchases.  The  Cavaliere  gave  him  a 
cautiously  remote  inkling  of  the  nature  of  the  case 
and,  on  his  own  responsibility,  sent  a  message  to  the 
Palazzo  Truffa  to  the  effect  that  the  Prorege  of  Ar- 
copia  would  please  himself  by  calling  there  next  day. 

Occident  was  a  total  stranger  in  Venice ;  La  Nulla- 
niuna  and  the  Princess  were  not  nearly  so  well  known 
as  in  their  own  proper  cities  j  but  the  whole  town 
knew  the  Prorege  of  Arcopia,  and,  most  of  all,  that 
side  of  the  town  with  which  he  was  now,  however 
unconsciously,  to  deal.  As  our  prince,  accompanied 
by  his  flurried  and  doubting  protege,  arrived  at  the 
palace  to  despatch  with  a  careless  geniality  what  he 
fancied  to  be  but  a  brief  and  casual  errand,  the  note 
of  preparation  sounded  on  the  threshold,  obsequious 
ness  ushered  him  in,  and  propitiation  smiled  dubi 
ously  from  every  corner.  The  Prorege,  who  had 
long  since  given  up  any  hope  of  meeting,  outside  of 
Arcopia,  that  simple  respect  which  he  would  have  so 
much  preferred  to  servility,  seated  himself  with  a 
plain  assumption  that  any  attention  from  him  to 
such  as  these  were  must  be,  if  only  an  unfavorable 
attention,  provocative  of  an  appreciative  thankful 
ness,  and  smilingly  awaited  the  production  of  the 
pictures. 

The  visit  was  rather  longer  than  the  Prorege's  time 


160          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

really  allowed,  and  went  off  into  various  ramifications 
that  lie  could  by  no  means  have  foreseen ;  but  he 
enjoyed  it  thoroughly,  nevertheless,  and  the  eyes  of 
adoring  thanks  which  Occident  turned  upon  him  as 
they  came  away  made  him  pleased  with  himself  for 
days  afterward.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  recite  in  de 
tail  the  gradual  but  remorselessly  steady  fashion 
whereby  the  hardy  and  sharp-lined  form  into  which 
an  insolent  fraud  had  cast  and  solidified  itself  melted 
down  and  trickled  away  before  the  warm  breath  of 
persiflage  and  ridicule  which  the  Prorege  blew  upon 
it.  But  though  we  must  assume  the  stare  of  laugh 
ing  amaze  that  he  fastened  upon  the  counterfeited 
Bordone,  and  the  glance  of  comic  despair  which  he 
cast  upon  his  so  patiently  instructed  but  so  cruelly 
disappointing  pupil,  and  the  hundred  shrugs  and  jests 
and  eyebrow-liftings  and  quizzical  interrogations  with 
which  he  harried  and  hunted  down  the  demoralized 
wretches  before  him,  yet  the  final  coup  which  he 
administered  is  worth  a  word  or  two.  With  the  help 
of  a  question  now,  and  an  admission  (equally  reluc 
tant  on  both  sides)  then,  an  easy  inference  here,  a 
riskless  assumption  there, —  all  done  with  a  smiling 
face  and  a  friendly  manner  upon  which  resentment 
could  take  no  hold, —  he  reached  substantially  the 
bottom  of  the  whole  affair ;  and,  simultaneously,  cer 
tain  dim  recollections  of  similar  faces  on  a  similar 
occasion  several  years  before  clarified  in  his  mind 
and  shone  forth  from  his  face ;  and  the  moment  came 
when  the  conspirators  fully  realized  that  he  knew 
them  for  what  they  were. 

The  Prorege  rose  to  go,  and  as  he  drew  on  his 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  161 

gloves  he  made  for  a  moment  the  only  use  of  the 
grand  manner  which  he  employed  during  his  entire 
call.  He  announced  with  a  marked  accession  of  gravity 
that  his  young  friend's  present  purpose  was  really  less 
to  buy  pictures  than  to  sell  them ;  his  companion  had 
at  his  apartment  a  number  of  canvases, —  with  some 
of  them  they  were  perhaps  already  familiar, — for 
which  he  bespoke  an  inspection  and  proposals.  The 
Prorege  loftily  fixed  a  threatening  eye  upon  the  mis 
creants,  and  left  with  their  stammered  promise  to  give 
this  matter  a  prompt  attention ;  and  Occident,  whose 
ignorance  and  inexperience  may,  after  all,  have  mag 
nified  the  difficulty  into  which  he  had  fallen,  congratu 
lated  himself  on  the  removal  of  the  only  impediment 
standing  between  him  and  the  pleasures  of  the  excur 
sion  to  Arcopia. 


XII 


THE  ADRIATIC  :   ARCOPIA  ON  THE  HORIZON 


HOUGH  the  Pro- 

rege  had  a  great 
partiality  for  the 
Lagoons  and  always 
kept  a  warm  place 
in  his  heart  for  the 
Venetian  city,  his 
arrivals  there,  in  no 
less  degree  than  his 
departures  thence, 
were  invariably  at 
tended  by  one  great 
pain  5  and  when 
the  Adria,  pointed 
toward  the  Dalma 
tian  coast,  spread  her  shining  sails  to  leave  the  city 
of  St.  Mark  upon  the  watery  horizon,  each  guest  on 
board  knew  why  his  host  had  fixed  his  steady  gaze 
upon  the  distant  outlines  of  the  Euganean  hills,  to 
keep  it  there  until  St.  Mark's  tall  campanile  should  be 
lost  from  sight.  For  a  single  glance  in  the  opposite 
direction,  toward  the  once-lovely  convent-isle  of  Sant7 


162 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          163 

Elena,  would  have  filled  him  with  an  impotent  yet 
gnawing  rage,  and  have  brought  to  his  cheek  a  vivid 
blush  of  shame  for  the  government  of  which  he  was 
constrained  to  acknowledge  himself  a  part.  For  Italy, 
the  Modern,  the  United,  had  set  her  heavy  official  foot 
upon  this  little  clump  of  sea-encircled  foliage  5  —  no 
beneficent  Minerva  whose  one  light  stamp  called  forth 
the  olive,  but  brutal  Progresso,  whose  iron-shod  hoof 
had  trampled  the  olive  down,  together  with  a  hundred 
other  gracious  and  tender  things,  into  the  muck  and 
mire,  and  had  heaped  upon  it  the  hundred  revolting 
forms  that  refuse  may  assume, —  that  a  great  and  hid 
eous  iron-foundry  can  produce  and  even  pride  itself 
in  producing. 

He  had  protested  vehemently,  indignantly,  against 
so  gross  and  wanton  an  outrage,  but  also  ineffectu 
ally  ;  and  he  had  for  his  consolation  only  the  thought 
that  all  right-minded  persons  were  with  him,  and  the 
self-administered  but  triumphant  assurance  that  Italy, 
indeed,  might  be  re-barbarized,  but  Arcopia  never. 
His  own  people  had  kept  so  close  to  the  primitive 
rightness  of  natural  man  that  no  such  sin  as  this 
would  ever  have  suggested  itself  to  them.  Had  any 
of  them  given  unwilling  lodgment  to  the  idea  they 
would  not  have  wished  to  act  upon  it,  nor  cared  to ; 
and  had  they  cared  they  still  would  not  have  dared : 
they  could  not  have  borne  up  against  the  flood  of 
execration  that  would  have  come  rolling  in  upon 
them.  Whose  was  the  earth?  our  indignant  prince 
would  ask  himself  when  considerations  of  this  kind 
rose  up  to  irritate  him.  Was  it  the  exclusive  posses 
sion  of  those  merely  who  were  now  living  out  their 


164          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

brief  day  upon  it,  or  was  it  something  more  —  the 
foothold  and  heritage  of  generations  yet  to  come? 
Who  could  make  good  to  those  of  the  coming  century 
the  felled  trees,  the  gashed  and  leveled  hills,  the  pol 
luted  ponds  and  choked-up  streams  that  signalized 
our  present  dealings  with  outraged  and  suffering 
Mother  Nature?  Who  was  to  render  back  to  them 
an  earth  as  beautiful  as  that  which  we  ourselves  re 
ceived  as  our  right, —  an  earth  whose  possession  and 
enjoyment  is  as  much,  as  inalienably,  their  right  as 
ours ?  More  ;  what  power  could  save  us  —  us,  full  of 
small  greeds  and  great  irreverences — from  the  amaze 
and  scorn  and  contempt  and  indignation  of  millions 
yet  unborn?  The  Prorege,  as  he  tormented  himself 
with  such  vain  questionings  as  these,  would  have  been 
well  enough  pleased  to  give  up  the  land  and  to  con 
tinue  on  the  water  —  the  self -purifying  and  uncon 
querable  sea — for  all  the  rest  of  his  days  instead  of 
merely  for  the  three  or  four  that  his  present  journey 
demanded,  were  not  every  puff  that  filled  the  Adrians 
wide-spread  sails  carrying  him  straight  to  a  land  where 
Nature  was  loved  and  revered, —  where  man  would  no 
more  rack  and  mutilate  the  great  frame  of  things  of 
which  he  was  consciously  and  joyfully  a  part  than  the 
hand  would  raise  itself  to  mar  and  disfig  -re  the  face. 
The  sentiments  of  the  Prorege  found  an  echo  —  an 
echo  clear,  indeed,  but  somewhat  transmogrified,  as 
echoes  occasionally  come  to  be  — in  the  mind  of  one, 
at  least,  of  his  guests.  This  was  the  Duke  of  Avon 
and  Severn,  who  (through  some  vague  notions  of 
reparation,  perhaps)  came,  at  the  last  moment  and 
rather  to  the  displeasure  of  more  than  one  of  our 


THE  CHEVALIEK   OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          165 

acquaintances,  to  be  included  in  the  viceregal  party. 
He,  however,  spoke  less  as  a  natural  man  than  as  a 
landed  proprietor.  He  had  lately  taken  to  democracy 
for  amusement,  as  we  have  already  seen  him  taking 
to  charity  (his  amusements  were  always  contempo 
raneous,  yet  never  trivial) ;  and  democracy,  in  its 
industrial  form,  had  lately  taken  to  the  erection  of 
grimy  chimneys  which  quite  overtopped  his  ancestral 
oaks  and  blew  incessantly  great  clouds  of  smoke 
across  his  meadows  and  paddocks.  His  last  brief 
and  long-delayed  visit  to  his  own  island  had  con 
vinced  him  that  he  could  very  well  dispense  with  wit 
nessing  the  last  stages  of  that  transformation  which 
had  all  but  changed  the  most  lovely  land  in  the  whole 
world  into  the  most  hideous,  and  had  confirmed 
him  in  the  resolution  to  limit  the  application  of  de 
mocracy,  as  well  as  the  exercise  of  philanthropy,  to 
those  cisalpine  regions  which  had  now  become  his 
permanent  home.  His  inquiries  concerning  Arcopian 
affairs  generally,  the  Prorege's  answers  to  them,  and 
the  discussions  which  naturally  ensued  were  listened 
to  by  Occident  with  a  kind  of  fascinated  trepidation 
which  the  Prorege's  cold-bloodedness  and  the  Duke's 
problematical  sincerity  did  little  to  allay.  The  Pro- 
rege  wouk1  roundly  declare  that,  as  far  as  concerned 
the  general  mass  of  humanity,  life  was  made  up  not 
of  a  few  great  things,  but  of  a  great  many  little 
things ;  and  that  to  encourage  the  populace  to  believe 
itself  doing  an  essential  and  a  meritorious  thing  when 
it  dabbled  in  complicated  questions  of  government, 
religion,  science,  and  all  that,  or  to  imagine  itself 
free  because  it  might  be  at  liberty  to  abuse  its  gov- 


166          THE  CHEVALIER   OF  PENSIEEI-VANI. 

ernors,  was  a  very  serious  error.  Not  ten  men  in  a 
thousand  could  think  at  all;  not  more  than  one  in 
the  ten  could  think  correctly  and  to  any  good  end :  a 
people  who  had  enough  to  eat,  enough  to  be  busy 
over,  a  little  leisure,  a  little  amusement,  an  opportu 
nity  to  effect  some  little  saving,  the  enjoyment  of 
a  considerable  degree  of  social  order  and  security,  a 
settled  way  of  life,  and  the  good  sense  to  do  as  little 
thinking  as  possible  might  be  expected  to  get  along 
very  well  and  happily,  indeed.  The  Arcopians  did  so. 
All  this  seemed  to  Occident,  whose  boyhood  had  been 
nourished  on  the  polemics  of  rustic  theologians  who 
boldly  grappled  with  the  knottiest  problems  that  con 
front  the  moral  world,  and  on  the  forensics  which  the 
Shelbyville  advocates  (who  perhaps  worshiped  Mind 
at  the  expense  of  manners)  frequently  transferred 
from  the  court-house  to  the  tavern,  a  hard  saying, 
indeed  —  a  saying  made  no  easier  through  the  semi- 
satirical  questionings  by  which  Avon  appeared  to 
take  the  other  side.  When,  his  Grace  asked  if  a  people 
were  entitled  to  any  better  government  than  their 
collective  sense  and  capacity  could  achieve,  Occident 
made  bold  to  say  that  they  could  have  none  better, 
and  ventured  to  expatiate  at  some  little  length  on  the 
beauties  and  blessings  of  popular  suffrage  as  disclosed 
in  his  own  highly  favored  land.  The  Prorege  straight 
way  declared  that  self-government  on  any  but  a  small 
scale,  and  in  any  but  a  young  and  simple  society,  was 
a  ludicrous  and  hideous  fallacy,  and  maintained  that 
of  all  the  perversions  which  the  workings  of  the 
human  mind  as  applied  to  politics  had  developed, 
none  was  more  astoundingly  illogical  than  that  which 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.  167 

resulted  in  the  conclusion  that  an  aggregation  of  half 
a  million  human  beings,  crowding  into  the  space  of  a 
few  square  miles  the  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty, 
and  all  the  possibilities  of  ambition  and  villainy  and 
ignorance  and  vice  and  misery  and  lawlessness  and 
seething  discontent,  could  rule  itself.  Under  such 
conditions  white-robed  Theory  was  foredoomed  to 
strangulation  at  the  sinewy  hands  of  merciless  Prac 
tice  ;  and  as  for  the  restless  ghost  of  Confusion  that 
would  leave  the  lifeless  body,  where  was  the  power 
to  lay  it?  No  great  city  could  be  self-governing;  the 
first  desideratum  was  a  ruler,  to  save  the  people  from 
itself. 

Occident  slyly  inquired  what  bearing  all  this  had  on 
the  governing  of  the  Arcopian  capital 5  as  the  entire 
province,  he  understood,  contained  considerably  less 
than  half  a  million  souls  to  be  saved  from  themselves, 
the  population  of  its  chief  town  could  not  be  danger 
ously  large.  The  Prorege  was  not  slow  to  detect  and 
resent  that  disparagement  of  smallness  which  the  con 
tinental  possibilities  of  Shelby  County  have  done  so 
much  to  encourage,  and  he  reminded  his  young  friend 
that  the  biggest  city  was  not  always  the  one  to  make 
the  longest  and  deepest  mark.  Florence,  in  her  great 
days,  contained  a  population  of  less  than  a  hundred 
thousand ;  Athens,  in  full  flower,  numbered  less  than 
a  third  of  that.  Arcopia,  the  gods  be  praised,  was 
quite  exempt  from  the  modern  curse  of  bigness.  One 
chimney  was  not  offensive,  but  a  million  made  a 
London.  One  refuse-heap  could  be  tolerated,  but 
accumulated  thousands  produced  a  New  York.  A 
hundred  weavers  in  their  own  cottages  meant  peace- 
12 


168          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

f ul  industry  and  home  content ;  a  hundred  hundred, 
massed  in  one  great  factory,  meant  vice  and  squalor 
and  disorder.  Society  had  never  courted  failure  or 
bid  for  misery  more  ardently  than  when  it  had  ac 
cepted  an  urban  industrialism  for  a  basis.  The  only 
true  and  lasting  and  healthy  and  happy  and  natural 
foundation  for  a  successful  national  life  was  that 
offered  by  agriculture. 

This  was  in  pretty  close  accord  with  Avon's  own 
ideas,  but  Occident,  whose  early  life  had  not  sounded, 
perhaps,  all  the  graceful  possibilities  of  an  agricul 
tural  existence,  and  who  was  decidedly  of  his  day  and 
race  in  his  aversion  to  a  life  perpetually  rustic,  asked, 
rather  contemptuously,  if  the  great  Arcopian  nobles 
were  farmers.  The  Prorege  replied,  with  an  appre 
ciable  accession  of  sternness,  that  the  Arcopian  nobles 
were  men.  An  adult  human  male  being  might  be, 
and  frequently  was,  a  good  deal  less  than  a  man,  but 
he  could  not  be  more.  In  this  present  day  it  was 
becoming  more  and  more  necessary  to  discriminate 
between  a  man  and  a  highly  specialized  machine. 
When  they  should  reach  Arcopia  he  would  be  glad  to 
present  his  questioner  to  several  gentlemen,  almost 
any  one  of  whom,  by  his  symmetrical  and  evenly 
developed  character  and  a  respectable  capacity  in  a 
variety  of  directions,  might  suggest  the  figure  of  the 
great  Vashingtone  himself.  The  Prorege's  vanity  was 
privately  tickled  at  the  ease  and  effect  with  which  he 
had  made  this  learned  allusion ;  but  his  complacency 
gave  way,  a  moment  later,  to  the  fiercest  indignation 
on  Occident's  carelessly  remarking  that  he  didn't  know 
that  the  Father  of  his  Country  was  ever  considered 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          169 

much  of  a  financier.  At  this,  our  good-humored 
prince,  for  the  first  and  last  time  in  his  life,  as  far  as 
I  am  aware,  quite  lost  his  temper.  If  it  were  necessary, 
he  angrily  declared,  to  discriminate  between  a  man 
and  a  machine,  it  was  doubly,  trebly  necessary  to 
discriminate  between  a  man  and  a  mere  money-ma 
chine.  He  was  furious,  and  but  for  Avon's  interven 
tion  in  the  astonished  young  man's  behalf  he  would 
have  gone  to  lengths  from  which  a  host  might  have 
found  it  awkward  and  humiliating  to  return.  The 
Duke  smiled  amicably  and  said  that  he  was  full  of 
pleasant  anticipations  concerning  Arcopia  and  its 
people, — their  prince  being  what  he  was,  he  expected 
great  things, —  an  Arcadia,  perhaps  a  Utopia.  The 
placated  Prorege  smilingly  cautioned  his  guest  not  to 
expect  too  much:  Arcopia  was  no  Arcadia,  no  Utopia; 
it  was  only  the  two  combined. 

But  a  little  incident  which  occurred  that  very  even 
ing  came  to  intervene  between  the  Duke  and  the 
Arcopian  felicities.  The  company  had  descended  to 
the  cabin  after  an  hour  spent  on  deck  in  the  early 
starlight  to  the  tinkling  of  the  mandolin  and  the 
pleasantly  blending  notes  of  three  or  four  good  voices : 
and  the  sight  of  the  well-filled  bookcases  which  formed 
a  part  of  the  yacht's  outfitting  gave  the  talk  an  un 
fortunate  turn  toward  literature.  From  books  to 
book-making  was  but  a  step,  and  this  step  the  Con- 
tessa,  after  an  exchange  of  glances  with  Pensieri  -Vani, 
presently  took;  what  more  natural  than  a  mention  of 
Aldus  on  the  eve  of  one's  departure  from  Venice? 
Her  object  was  to  get  a  declaration  of  some  kind 
from  Avon,  and  she  did  get  it  without  much  delay. 


170          THE  CHEVALIEE  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

For  the  Prorege,  at  the  mention  of  the  great  Venetian , 
at  once  took  up  the  word,  entering  upon  such  a  glow 
ing  panegyric  of  this  earnest  and  many-sided  man, 
who  was  at  once  author  and  editor,  type-founder, 
printer,  proof-reader,  and  publisher, — who  organized 
an  extensive  printing-house,  who  superintended  the 
work  of  his  men  from  composition  to  the  binding  and 
even  the  selling  of  his  books,  who  wrote  grammars 
and  compiled  lexicons,  who  kept  up  a  voluminous 
and  learned  correspondence,  combating,  meanwhile, 
the  treachery  of  workmen  and  the  frauds  of  competi 
tors, — that  Avon,  surprised  by  so  unexpected  a  burst 
of  enthusiasm,  straightway  betrayed  himself.  He  re 
marked  that,  as  the  subject  of  the  early  Italian  print 
ers  had  been  brought  up,  the  company  might  find 
some  interest  in  a  small  volume  that  had  lately  been 
thrown  in  his  way.  He  put  his  hand  carefully  into  an 
inside  pocket  and  handed  over  to  the  Prorege  his 
Statius  of  1502.  The  Prorege  gave  a  look  at  the  title- 
page  and  his  mounting  enthusiasm  suddenly  cooled. 
With  a  smile,  half  of  amusement,  half  of  embarrass 
ment,  he  gave  Avon  a  word  of  formal  congratulation, 
and  passed  the  volume  over  to  the  inspection  of  his 
right-hand  neighbor.  The  Cavaliere,  who  felt  (or  so 
he  thought)  the  full  significance  of  the  Prorege's 
change  of  manner,  thereupon  declared  that  he,  too, 
had  recently  come  into  possession  of  an  Aldine,  and 
asked  for  his  little  book  the  attention  that  the  Duke's 
had  already  received.  The  Prorege  received  in  like 
manner  the  second  Statius  of  1502.  He  took  a  single 
glance  at  the  first  leaf  and  closed  the  complacent  Ca- 
valiere's  little  offering  with  a  smile  of  derisive  pity. 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          171 

Avon  at  once  extended  his  hand  for  it,  and  proceeded 
to  subject  it  to  as  great  and  open  a  contempt  as  the 
occasion  would  permit.  The  Cavaliere  eagerly  de 
manded  the  Duke's;  and  with  this  exchange  of  rapiers, 
so  to  speak,  hostilities  seriously  began. 

Avon  pointed  out  that  the  title-page  of  the  volume 
which  the  gentleman  had  seen  fit  to  purchase — a  pur 
chase  that  had  been  a  little  hasty  and  unconsidered, 
perhaps — bore  that  upon  its  face  which  stamped  it  as 
coming  from  anywhere  rather  than  from  the  press  of 
Aldus.  The  Cavaliere,  in  no  great  degree  discom 
posed  by  the  ducal  sneer,  or  by  the  half-suppressed 
smiles  on  the  expectant  faces  around  them,  regretted, 
in  his  turn,  that  the  volume  which  he  himself  held, 
so  far  from  being  the  work  of  Aldus,  was  not  the 
work  of  any  Venetian  printer  whomsoever.  Avon 
was  considerably  shaken  by  this  broad  and  offhand 
assertion,  but  retained  his  composure  to  point  out 
with  some  effect  the  weak  point  in  the  Cavaliere's 
case;  he  drew  attention  to  the  words  "Festina  lente" 
which  figured  on  the  title-page, —  words  which,  while 
essential  to  the  genuineness  of  an  Aldine  of  a  later 
date,  were  worse  than  superfluous  in  one  of  1502,  at 
which  time  the  motto  —  however  pertinaciously  held 
later — had  not  been  adopted.  To  this  the  Cavaliere 
replied  that  a  moderately  careful  inspection  of  his 
title  would  show  this  motto  as  having  been  carelessly 
added  by  a  later  and  misguided  printer;  the  types 
used  for  these  two  words  were  old  and  worn,  quite  in 
contrast  with  the  sharp  and  clear-cut  impression  of 
the  new  types  with  which  the  books  of  1502  were 
printed.  He  had  considered  this  point  already  for 


172          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

himself,  and  was  quite  satisfied  as  to  the  justness 
of  his  conclusion.  But  he  was  altogether  unable  to 
understand — here  he  fixed  a  cruel  regard  upon  the 
Duke's  little  book  — how  the  copy  in  his  own  hands 
could  ever  have  been  accounted  genuine  by  anybody. 
It  was  only  necessary  to  note  the  device  of  the  anchor 
and  dolphin.  In  his  Grace's  copy  the  head  of  the 
dolphin  turned  toward  the  left;  in  every  genuine 
Aldus  the  head  of  the  dolphin  turned  to  the  right ;  it 
pained  him  to  be  obliged  to  pronounce  the  book  a 
production  of  the  Giunta  of  Florence, — the  most  suc 
cessful  of  counterfeits  perhaps,  but  a  counterfeit,  all 
the  same. 

Avon,  who  had  felt  himself  fully  guarded  at  every 
point,  was  staggered  to  discover  himself  so  vulnerable, 
after  all ;  but  he  pulled  himself  together  enough  to 
attempt  a  kind  of  defense.  Just  at  the  moment,  how 
ever,  when  all  his  emphasis  and  eloquence  were  being 
employed  to  prove  that  the  turn  of  the  dolphin's  head 
was  by  no  means  an  infallible  test,  something  oc 
curred  which  might  well  have  recalled  that  famous 
eclipse  of  the  sun  that  once  put  an  end  to  the  struggle 
of  contending  Asiatic  hordes.  The  awkwardness  of 
a  purblind  old  lady,  who  was  groping  among  the  cur 
tained  shelves  of  one  of  the  bookcases  close  by, 
brought  tumbling  to  the  floor  a  dozen  or  more  vol 
umes  that  seemed  to  have  been  piled  provisionally 
in  a  corner,  and  that,  despite  the  frantic  efforts  of  the 
Prorege  to  hurry  them  out  of  sight,  lay  gaping  and 
sprawling  there  upon  the  carpet  beyond  any  possibility 
of  concealment  or  palliation.  Pensieri -Vani,  despite 
the  pleadings  of  the  Prorege  (who  had  now  come  to 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI.          173 

a  comprehension  of  the  whole  situation)  that  no  one 
would  give  himself  any  trouble  on  account  of  this 
little  accident,  pushed  forward  to  help  gather  up  the 
fallen  volumes;  the  first  one  on  which  he  laid  his 
hands  was  a  great  folio,  whose  title-page  declared  it  an 
Aristophanes  of  1500  and —  an  Aldine.  At  the  Cava- 
liere's  cry  of  surprise  the  Duke  himself  stooped  down, 
and  rose  again  with  an  Aristotle, —  the  Organon  of 
1494,  an  Aldine  also,  and  of  the  editio  princeps,  at 
that.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  depict  the  Prorege's 
embarrassed  triumph  as  the  entire  party,  flocking 
about,  clamored  for  the  inspection  of  his  hitherto- 
unsuspected  treasure:  his  Ovid  and  Virgil,  his  Pe 
trarch  and  Dante— all  Aldines;  his  great  first  edition 
of  Plato,  for  every  error  in  which  Aldus  offered  the 
discoverer  a  golden  crown.  Nor  shall  I  touch  upon 
the  delight  of  Pensieri-Vani  and  the  Contessa,  who 
saw  the  books  bestowed,  after  all,  according  to  their 
first  intention.  Least  of  all  shall  I  speak  of  the  dis 
appointment  and  mortification  of  the  Duke ;  he  kept 
his  emotions,  by  a  great  effort,  to  himself,  and  let  us 
not  part  the  veil  which  he  hung  between  the  world 
and  his  own  frustrated  plans  and  blighted  hopes. 

The  Contessa's  delight,  though  keen,  was  propor 
tionately  brief;  it  was  scarce  twenty-four  hours  later 
ere  she  herself  became  the  prey  of  emotions  doubly 
as  poignant  as  those  which  had  desolated  the  Duke 
and  infinitely  less  disguisable.  The  Contessa  had  al 
most  forgotten  the  episode  at  Ostia,  and  supposed  the 
Prorege  had  almost  forgotten  it  as  well.  But  he  rer 
membered  it  only  too  perfectly ;  and  though  he  might 
never  regain  the  considerate  regard  of  the  Roman 


174          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI  -VANI. 

city,  he  was  fully  determined  to  visit  upon  the  Con- 
tessa  as  severe  a  punishment  as  a  gentleman  may  in 
flict  upon  a  lady,  a  host  upon  his  guest  j  when  he 
remembered  the  indignity  which  she,  as  a  guest,  had 
put  upon  him,  he  decided  that  the  bounds  of  courtesy 
should  be  extended  even  a  little  farther.  His  oppor 
tunity  came  when  the  Contessa's  vanity  led  her  to  an 
exhibition  of  her  peculiar  gift  of  improvisation ;  and 
though  her  effort  was  so  impassioned,  so  finished,  so 
charged  with  genuine  feeling,  so  free  from  technical 
blemishes  as  to  compel  his  unqualified  admiration, 
yet  he  did  not  stay  his  hand  against  her.  When  she 
had  concluded  she  looked  toward  his  place  for  an  ex 
pression  of  that  approval  which  she  felt  sure  she 
deserved,  and  which  she  had  been  disappointed  in 
once  before ;  but  he  was  nowhere  in  sight,  and  it  was 
only  after  an  hour  of  tremulous  yet  silent  protest  and 
of  mortified  pride  that  she  noted  his  reappearance. 
He  begged  her  pardon  for  the  tardy  acknowledgments 
which  pressing  concerns  in  another  part  of  the  ship 
were  really  to  blame  for,  and  proceeded  to  compli 
ment  her  with  a  richness  and  fullness  of  expression 
that  none  of  her  other  auditors  had  been  able  to  com 
mand.  Her  grace  of  gesture,  her  musically  modulated 
voice,  her  depth  of  feeling,  her  remarkable  power  of 
memory,  lie  had  never  seen  surpassed;  no  recitation 
to  which  he  had  ever  listened  had  given  him  so  great 
a  pleasure.  Her  "memory"!  The  Contessa  stared. 
Her  "  recitation  "  !  She  felt  an  indignation  akin  to 
that  which  wells  up  from  the  heart  of  the  girl  gradu 
ate  whose  polished  and  pretentious  essay  some  one 
dares  to  call  a  "  piece."  But  when  the  Prorege  went 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI.          175 

on  to  say  that  her  selection  had  always  been  a  great 
favorite  of  his,  and  then,  taking  up  a  small  volume 
that  lay  close  at  hand  on  a  table,  read  from  it  one  or 
two  of  the  most  striking  passages  which  she  had  just 
declaimed,  her  surprise  and  dismay  and  vexation 
knew  no  bounds.  Her  cheek  flushed  brightly  and  a 
glittering  drop  started  in  each  eye  as  she  demanded 
to  see  the  book  for  herself.  Alas !  Every  word  she 
had  uttered  stared  from  its  pages  in  cold,  uncom 
promising  print.  Poor  lady !  —  how  could  her  eyes, 
filled  with  vexatious  tears,  see  that  the  type  on  one 
page  was  quite  different  from  the  type  on  another  ? 
How  could  her  dazed  brain  take  in  the  fact  that  a 
leaf  or  so  quite  foreign  to  the  original  volume  had 
been  inserted  in  it  ?  How  could  it  have  occurred  to 
her,  or,  indeed,  to  any  of  those  whose  amused  or  sur 
prised  or  malicious  faces  surrounded  her,  that  every 
word  she  had  uttered  had  been  reduced  to  print 
within  the  last  hour?  For  the  Prorege's  enthusiasm 
over  the  art  of  printing  did  not  stop  with  mere  theory: 
he  carried  with  him  on  board  the  Adria  not  only  his 
secretary,  but  his  press  and  his  workmen,  and  by  a 
little  prearrangement  had  been  able  to  carry  out  with 
celerity  and  precision  a  scheme  which  inflicted  upon 
this  long-respited  culprit  an  anguish  that  almost  made 
amends  for  the  pangs  which  he  himself  had  suffered 
at  Rome.  At  the  proper  time,  of  course,  the  Prorege 
confessed  his  deception,  and  reinstated  the  Contessa 
in  the  consideration  of  her  friends  ;  but  he  did  this 
with  a  discretionary  leisure  which  did  not  unduly 
shorten  her  pain,  and  which  allowed  ample  opportu 
nity  for  the  lesson  to  take  a  full  effect. 

12* 


176          THE  CHEVALIEK  OF  PENSIEBI-VANI. 

And  now  if,  after  having  touched  on  Avon's  frus 
trated  plans  and  the  Contessa's  vexation  and  dismay, 
I  venture  to  allude  to  the  discomfort  and  dissatisfac 
tion  that  was  filling  the  bosom  of  a  third  guest  of  the 
Prorege,  I  run  very  consciously  the  risk  of  making 
the  voyage  to  Arcopia  seem  quite  other  than  a  voyage 
of  pleasure,  and  the  dedication  of  his  latest  architec 
tural  masterpiece  a  much  less  satisfactory  and  har 
monious  occasion  than  it  really  was.  The  third 
malcontent  was  Occident,  whose  dissatisfaction  was 
of  a  very  comprehensive  and  complicated  character. 
As  he  sat  out  upon  the  deck  late  one  evening  with  Hors- 
Concours,  smoking  a  placid  cigar,  and  idly  watching 
the  fleet  foot-tracks  which  marked  the  Adrians  flight 
from  the  pursuing  moon,  he  was  moved  by  the  vicinity 
of  a  patient,  if  not  a  sympathetic,  ear  to  make  a  gen 
eral  statement  of  his  grievances.  First  of  all,  he  was 
angry  with  the  Prorege,  with  whom  he  had  all  but 
broken.  Their  opinionative  host  had  ended  one  of 
his  trying  talks  not  half  an -hour  ago  with  the  blunt 
declaration  that  while  America  might,  indeed,  be  an 
example  to  older  countries,  it  was  an  example  to  serve 
less  as  a  pattern  than  as  a  warning;  and  this  obser 
vation  our  young  man  had  not  yet  brought  himself 
to  forgive.  Then,  he  was  troubled  with  suspicions  of 
a  possible  incorrectness  of  relation  between  Pensieri- 
Vani  and  the  Contessa, — a  relation  which,  while  it 
would  have  led  to  instant  condemnation  in  Shelby- 
ville,  seemed  to  provoke  only  the  slightest  of  comment 
on  board  the  Adria.  But  above  all  he  was  tormented 
with  reminiscences  of  his  Venetian  experiences,— 
recollections  that  became  more  galling  and  more  har- 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.  177 

assing  with  every  one  of  their  sudden  and  unescap- 
able  recurrences.  He  confessed  to  Hors-Concours  a 
grave  doubt  of  his  own  ability  to  take  the  European 
attitude;  he  believed  himself  unable  to  master  the 
intricacies  of  Old  World  life.  There  seemed  nothing 
for  him  to  do  but  to  go  back  to  Shelby  County  and 
stay  there.  Hors-Concours  asked  him  if  he  thought 
he  should  be  happy  there.  The  poor  fellow  acknow 
ledged  that  he  should  not;  every  day,  every  hour,  of 
his  life  in  Shelby ville  would  bring  its  own  peculiar 
discomfort.  If  it  would  only  bring  sorrow!  there 
was  dignity  in  this.  If  it  would  only  bring  misery! 
there  was  pity  for  that.  But  for  mere  discomfort, 
however  complete,  however  perpetual,  nobody  had 
anything  but  contemptuous  impatience.  He  felt  his 
position  one  of  peculiar  hardship.  Birth  and  habit 
drew  him  in  one  direction;  culture  and  aspiration,  in 
another;  but  he  had  never  been  a  good  American, 
and  he  feared  he  should  never  make  a  good  European. 
He  was  between  two  fires,  both  of  which  scorched 
him;  between  two  stools,  neither  of  which  offered 
him  a  comfortable  seat;  between  the  two  horns  of  a 
dilemma,  each  of  which  seemed  more  cruelly  sharp 
than  the  other.  Hors-Concours,  making  rather  light 
of  his  difficulties,  suggested  that  it  might  be  well  for 
him  to  postpone  a  decision  until  he  had  seen  Arcopia : 
what  Arcopia  had  in  store  for  him  I  shall  presently 
undertake  to  relate. 

What  Circumstance  had  in  store  for  the  Adria  I  will 
relate  at  once.  Our  voyagers  were  within  but  a  day 
of  the  Arcopian  capital  when,  in  the  midst  of  a  violent 
storm  that  lashed  the  sea  into  a  million  angry  waves, 


178          THE  CHEVALIER  OF   PENSIEEI-VANI. 

and  filled  the  heavens  with  the  vivid  courses  of  an  un 
interrupted  succession  of  thunderbolts,  and  strewed 
the  sea-coast  with  scores  of  scattered  wrecks,  the  Adria 
was  boarded  by  the  Margravine  of  Schwahlbach- 
Schreckenstein.  The  Margravine,  who  had  been  so 
successful  in  braving  the  powers  of  government  that 
she  deemed  herself  able  to  brave  the  powers  of  nature 
too,  had  found  herself  on  one  of  her  small  estates  in 
Dalmatia,  and,  deciding  on  a  return  to  Italy,  had  de 
termined,  despite  the  advice  and  warning  of  every 
one  who  could  reach  her  ear,  to  engage  a  small  craft 
and  to  cross  directly  over  to  the  Italian  coast.  She 
had  not  been  aboard  her  preserver's  yacht  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before  she  made  it  known  that  her  inten 
tion  was  still  unchanged,  and  that  if  her  expectations 
were  to  be  at  all  met  the  Adria  would  put  about  and 
set  her  down  at  Ancona.  The  Adria,  it  is  superfluous 
to  say,  did  nothing  of  the  kind  j  the  Adrians  owner 
extended  the  hospitality  of  his  yacht  and  his  capital 
to  such  effect  that  the  high-strung  daughter  of  Ar- 
minius  was  induced  to  permit  him  and  his  guests  to 
continue  on  their  way.  He  assured  her  that  without 
the  presence  of  so  distinguished  a  patron  of  the  arts 
the  dedication  of  Arcopia's  new  opera-house  would 
limp  to  but  a  lame  and  impotent  consummation ;  and 
the  flattered  Margravine,  who  was  by  no  means  in 
vulnerable  against  the  addresses  of  middle-aged  gal 
lantry,  graciously  consented  to  decorate  a  box  on  that 
brilliant  and  momentous  occasion. 


XIII 


FLORENCE:  FINALE 

FORTNIGHT  later,  Pen- 
sieri-Vani  found  himself 
again  domiciled  in  his 
appartamento  at  Flor 
ence,  with  the  familar 
Arnobeneathhis  win 
dows  and  his  numer 
ous  travel -trophies 
all  around  him.  The 
"Madonna  Incognita" 
looked  down  benign 
ly  from  the  wall,  and  the 
Statius  of  1502,  to  which  his 
faith  still  clung,  enjoyed  a  con 
spicuous  post  upon  his  shelves. 
And  as  he  proceeded  to  a  leisurely 
review  and  rearrangement  of  his 
possessions  —  an  attention  that  an  absence  of  several 
months,  passed  in  various  places,  seemed  to  make 
necessary  —  he  lost  himself  in  thoughts  of  the  week 
which  he  had  just  enjoyed  in  Arcopia.  As  may  be 
readily  surmised,  the  chief  event  of  the  week  had  been 

179 


180  THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI -VANI. 

the  dedication  of  that  new  temple  of  the  Muses  upon 
which  the  Prorege  had  decided  —  rightly  considering 
that  a  gift  lost  its  character  of  gift  in  the  precise  de 
gree  that  it  took  on  a  cast  of  mere  utility  —  in  place 
of  the  town  hall  originally  projected;  and  the  chief 
figure  in  his  reveries  was  naturally  the  Prorege  him 
self,  whom  he  had  now  seen  in  all  the  dignity  and 
splendor  of  his  official  state.  It  was  on  occasions  of 
this  kind  that  our  prince  se  reconnaissait  most  com 
pletely;  and  as  he  leaned  forward  from  his  box  to 
survey  the  work  which  his  own  taste  and  liberality 
had  accomplished,  and  to  receive  the  plaudits  which 
the  thronged  and  brilliant  auditorium  heaped  upon 
him,  he  had  the  felicitous  air  of  a  man  who  feels  con 
sciously  the  exact  niche  for  which  he  was  designed. 
That  poor  little  happening  at  Pisa —  so  impromptu,  so 
provincial  —  paled  to  nothingness  before  the  magnifi 
cence,  the  completeness,  the  furore,  which  signalized 
the  opening  of  the  Arcopian  season ;  and  the  pro- 
regal  star,  which  had  then  .emitted  but  an  uncertain 
and  provisional  twinkle,  now  shone  with  a  broad  and 
steady  splendor  as  the  all-acknowledged  center  of  the 
Arcopian  system. 

But  another  figure  in  the  Cavaliere's  reveries  — 
a  star  which  gleamed  brightly  before  even  the  pro- 
regal  magnificence  —  was  that  of  the  prima  donna 
herself,  who  shared  with  her  princely  patron  the 
homage  of  the  evening.  Her  first  entrance  had  a 
most  marked  effect  upon  the  various  personages 
whom  our  ingenious  prince  had  grouped  about  him 
in  his  own  box.  The  Margravine  gave  a  short  grunt 
of  surprise,  the  Contessa  could  not  suppress  a  little 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.          181 

cry  of  delight,  Occident  beamed  with  a  kind  of  amazed 
ecstasy,  and  the  Cavaliere  himself  instantly  caught  the 
Prorege's  hand  to  squeeze  his  appreciation  of  so  grate 
ful  and  delightful  a  surprise.  For  the  singer  was  none 
other  than  his  Pisan  protegee,  the  "  Signorina"  of  their 
collective  beneficence, —  more  practised,  more  beau 
tiful  than  ever,  and  now,  with  a  gay  and  graceful 
facility,  warbling  her  best  thanks  to  the  Prorege's 
astonished  guests.  Hors-Concours  busily  explained 
to  the  inquiring  Princess  the  precise  significance  of 
the  situation;  and  Pensieri-Vani,  getting  a  certain 
view  of  Occident's  expressive  countenance,  identified 
him  now,  for  the  first  time,  with  the  youth  at  Pisa 
whose  agonized  face  had  contributed  so  much  to  his 
own  panic,  and  whose  lavish  munificence  had  done 
so  much  to  bring  them  all  to  the  brink  of  failure. 

From  recollections  such  as  these  the  Cavaliere's 
thoughts  went  on  to  Arcopia  in  general,  and  took  on 
a  certain  tinge  of  regret  and  disquiet  as  the  things 
which  his  brief  visit  had  left  unaccomplished  rose  up 
to  reproach  him.  That  one  short  sojourn  embraced, 
perhaps,  the  opportunity  of  a  lifetime;  yet  to  what 
little  account  had  he  really  turned  it!  How  many 
times  had  indifference  and  waning  enthusiasm,  and  a 
too  great  regard  for  mere  comfort,  come  in  between 
him  and  his  own  profit.  How  much  he  had  left  un 
seen,  how  much  undone.  How  many  masterpieces 
remained  unviewed,  how  many  landscapes  had  been 
left  unsketched,  unpainted.  How  many  interesting 
personages  he  had  failed  to  meet,  how  many  memor 
able  spots  he  had  left  unvisited !  Such  are  some  of  the 
pensieri  vani  that  torment  the  home-come  voyager, — 


182          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI -VANI. 

such  the  vain  regrets  that  perpetually  prick  the  con 
science  of  him  who  fails  fully  to  improve  his  greatest 
opportunity. 

But  if  the  Cavaliere  had  failed  to  improve  one  op 
portunity,  Occident  had  fully  succeeded  in  improving 
another.  He  dropped  in  most  unexpectedly  upon 
the  literary  employments  of  the  Cavaliere  a  month 
later,  and  his  whole  bearing  and  manner  was  so  con 
spicuously  complacent,  so  radiantly  self -satisfied,  that 
his  host  at  once  prepared  for  a  revelation  of  the  most 
intimate  and  ecstatic  nature.  Occident  had  come,  he 
announced,  to  say  good-by;  it  was  his  intention  to 
return  to  his  own  home  immediately.  The  Cavaliere, 
rather  surprised, — for  he  had  heard  something  of  Oc 
cident's  singular  state  of  mind  from  Hors-Concours, — 
inquired  if  he  had  succeeded  in  reconciling  himself 
to  such  a  life.  Occident  replied  with  a  marked  em 
phasis  that  he  had;  his  wife,  like  himself,  was  a  native 
of  Shelby  County,  where  they  had  first  become  ac 
quainted  years  ago,  and  would  not  fail  to  feel  at  home 
among  old  scenes  and  old  friends.  The  astonished 
Cavaliere  sat  dumbly  through  his  caller's  recital;  and 
when  he  at  last  fully  comprehended  that  his  "  Signo- 
rina"  had  given  up  her  splendid  present  and  her  pre 
sumably  glorious  future  to  wed  this  very  ordinary 
youth  from  the  dark  outskirts  of  Barbaria,  he  could 
scarcely  find  tongue  to  voice  an  appropriate  word. 
When  Occident,  however,  made  a  very  feeling  ac 
knowledgment  of  the  kindness  shown  to  the  friendless 
young  girl  who  had  become  his  wife,  the  Cavaliere 
was  able  to  wish  them  as  much  joy  as  should  crown 
such  a  union  of  genius  and  fortune.  But  matrimony 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI.          183 

in  almost  every  case,  he  thought,  was  a  weakness,  and 
in  this  ease  it  involved  nothing  less  than  a  sacrifice. 

But  the  Cavaliere's  emotional  tribute  to  these  Oc 
cidental  doings  was  not,  fortunately,  very  excessive, 
or  he  would  never  have  been  able  to  stand  the  drain 
on  his  sensibilities  that  ensued  when  another  and  a 
more  intimate  friend  approached  him  with  similar  in 
telligence.  When  Hors-Concours,  of  all  men,  came  to 
say  that  he,  too,  had  serious  intentions  of  a  matri 
monial  nature,  the  dismayed  Cavaliere,  pierced  to  the 
heart,  gave  him  a  reproachful  glance,  murmured  the 
brief  yet  historical  phrase  of  the  great  Roman,  and 
muffling  himself  in  the  toga  of  single  blessedness, 
sank  deserted  at  the  feet  of  statued  Celibacy.  Hors- 
Concours  was  much  affected  by  this  picturesque  pro 
ceeding;  he  was  made  to  feel  that  he  had  deserted  a 
friend — that  he  had,  somehow, betrayed  a  cause;  and 
when  the  afflicted  Cavaliere  finally  bethought  himself 
to  inquire  the  name  and  station  of  the  presumptuous 
interloper  (for  so  he  regarded  the  object  of  his  friend's 
affections),  the  Seigneur  hesitated  to  declare  them. 
He  presently  avowed  that  he  aspired  to  the  hand  of 
the  Princess  Altissimi.  The  Cavaliere,  ready  to  catch 
at  every  desperate  straw,  inquired  if  difference  in  rank 
might  not  prove  an  obstacle.  The  Seigneur  proudly 
and  gallantly  replied  that  rank  was  less  than  birth, 
and  that  in  birth  he  might  meet  the  highest  on  an 
equal  footing.  The  Cavaliere  demanded  if  the  Princess 
could  be  expected  to  live  at  the  Rochers  de  Hors-Con 
cours.  The  Seigneur,  in  turn,  desired  to  know  how 
much  he  was  in  the  habit  of  living  there  himself;  he 
and  his  bride  should  reside  in  Rome  or  in  Florence. 


184          THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIERI-VANI. 

The  Cavaliere  implored  his  friend  not  to  end  the 
intimacy  of  so  many  years.  The  Seigneur  rejoined 
that  their  intimacy  might  still  continue,  but  that  the 
long  line  of  Hors-Concours  must  not  be  allowed  to 
lapse  through  any  fault  of  his.  The  Cavaliere  ironi 
cally  inquired  if  his  friend  were  now  absolutely  with 
out  a  son.  The  Seigneur  gravely  explained  that  a  son 
was  one  thing,  a  son  and  heir,  another 5  that  the 
Princess  was  no  green  girl,  but  an  experienced  and 
sober-minded  woman  j  and  that  nothing  would  com 
pensate  him  for  a  failure  to  pass  his  heritage  in  Savoy 
down  in  succession  to  a  proper  and  legitimate  pos 
terity.  Upon  this,  Pensieri  -Vani  hopelessly  f orebore, 
and  silently  added  to  his  long  list  of  failures,  and  of 
half-successes  that  are  worse  than  failures,  his  bootless 
attempt  to  monopolize  the  affection  of  the  Seigneur 
of  Hors-Concours. 

In  the  fit  of  despondency  into  which  the  nuptials  of 
his  friend  threw  him  he  was  disposed  to  confound  all 
nice  distinctions,  to  dispense  with  all  saving  clauses, 
and  to  write  the  word  failure  against  his  whole  life 
and  career;  but  he  consoled  himself  with  the  reflec 
tion  that  no  one  of  us  all  was  able  to  establish  the 
criterion  of  real  success,  or  to  see  the  end  before  the 
end  came;  that  life  had  many  sides,  and  that  Italy 
had  not  yet  given  up  to  him  all  that  she  had  to  give ; 
and  he  presently  became  himself  again.  He  could 
still  congratulate  himself  on  his  exemption  from  the 
burdens  of  wealth,  the  chafings  of  domestic  relations, 
the  chains  of  affairs,  the  martyrdom  of  a  great  ambi 
tion,  and  the  dwarfing  provincialism  that  comes  from 
one  settled  home.  Others  might  falter;  but  he  was 


THE  CHEVALIER  OF  PENSIEEI-VANI.          185 

still  sufficient  unto  himself,  still  master  of  his  own 
time  and  his  own  actions,  and  enamored  only  of  that 
delightful  land  whose  beauty  age  cannot  wither  and 
whose  infinite  variety  custom  can  never  stale. 


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